


Tale of Tongues

by haunter_ielle



Series: Striking the Heart [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Companions-Fandom
Genre: But like ancient Nord shouters, Drama, Family Feels, Fate & Destiny, I have a lot of really sick ideas, In-Laws, Just let Vilkas be a dad and move on Hunter I mean come on, Male-Female Friendship, Marriage, Multi, Multiple Dovahkiins, Multiple Dragonborns, Not like tongues in your mouth, POV Multiple, Skyrim Main Quest, Tongues, Why do I keep screwing up Karalissa's life, but with a twist, ya know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haunter_ielle/pseuds/haunter_ielle
Summary: In the fourth installment of the Striking the Heart series, we learn that much of the tale of Skyrim's greatest hero wasn't written the way it should have been. Cassius and Karalissa must, once again, sift through the secrets and lies of their past to discover the truth. And when the truth finally dawns, it dawns in fire.





	1. The Gathering Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after Catriona's brithday, the many extensions of the Felstead family are shocked by the news that Karalissa and Cassius return with, but no one is more shocked than the High King.
> 
> POV: Ulfric Stormcloak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends!!  
> Sorry I haven't posted in like eighty-four years. I was hella busy with finals and I work near constantly, and to be completely honest, I had too many projects going at once. I'm in the middle of a Dark Brotherhood book, I still haven't finished Walk with the Shadows (I'm a little bitter), and I've been outlining an original work that I plan to start posting.  
> Anywho, this book picks up where Before the Storm left off. Arabella and Cicero aren't in this.
> 
> The year is 4E207, if that's helpful at all. A lot of time has passed since Blood's Honor.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for reading and constantly supporting and commenting on my work. It's incredibly gratifying to interact with you all, and I wouldn't keep writing if I wasn't so inspired to by your feedback. Hugs for all of you little noodles.
> 
> And without any further words from me, here's the fic:

            I moved to the side as Lydia hustled toward me, her nephew on her hip and guiding her daughter by the hand. She wasn’t looking directly at me, but instead through me, her eyes set on wherever it was she was headed in such a hurry.

            When she did see me, though, she side stepped and handed Leif to me. “Take the children.” she ordered, passing Catriona’s hand off to me as she spoke.

            Galmar rounded the corner at that moment, fastening the straps of his arm across his chest. “What’s the problem?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.

            Lydia shook her head. “There’s a dragon. Cass took the others to go fight a damned dragon.” she squeezed past us and continued down the hall. “I have to get my armor.”

            Galmar caught her by the arm, stopping her before she’d taken three steps. She look so angry with him, so genuinely unenthused by his presence, but all he did was laugh. “Do wise warriors march into battle without a clear head?” he asked.

            Lydia blinked at him, her blue eyes angry for several moments before they softened. She shook her head, her shoulders relaxing. “No, Galmar. They don’t.”

            “Then why is such a wise warrior planning to join a battle with her mind fogged?” Galmar asked her, a small smile on his face. Though he had always been very gruff and angry, he’d developed a soft-spot for Lydia. I think he saw a lot of himself in her, the way she longed for a battle and the way she carried herself. He admired her, especially after the Battle-Maiden decked Maven Black-Briar in the nose and threw her from Mistveil Keep so many years ago.

            And Lydia had always strived to make Galmar feel included. She knew what it was like to be a housecarl, let alone a housecarl who was constantly overshadowed by the one they served. They had a certain affinity for each other, Galmar and Lydia, and they always seemed to know the right things to say to one another.

            She shook her head as Galmar released her arm, pushing her dark hair away from her face. “Apologies, Galmar. I just…I haven’t missed a dragon fight in a long time, especially not since Cass was almost killed. I worry for him. That’s all.”

            Galmar nodded solemnly, stealing a quick glance in my direction. “I understand, Battle-Maiden. Some things are too valuable to allow to act frivolously.” He smirked at me, then returned his gaze to hers. “Who did he take with him?”

            “Karalissa and the twins.” she replied.          

            “Well, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.” Galmar said matter-of-factly. “Cassius was born to defeat dragons, and if that isn’t enough, Farkas and Vilkas are more than built for battle. And Karalissa is damned good with a bow. They’re all warriors. You have nothing to fear.”

            Lydia relaxed entirely, nodding to him for a final time. “Of course, you’re right, Galmar.” She turned to me, reaching to take the children from me again. “I’m sorry, Ulfric. I didn’t mean to—”

            I laughed, shaking my head as I guided the children to the kitchen. “Nonsense, Lydia. I’ll take any opportunity to spend some time with my grandchildren.” I smiled at Leif, who simply scowled at me. “Even if this one doesn’t seem to enjoy my company.”

            He exhaled sharply, looking at me with gray eyes. “I wanted to fight a dragon.” Leif mumbled. “Papa wouldn’t let me.”

            I raised an eyebrow as we all entered the kitchen. “Your papa is a smart man, Leif. He knows what’s best for you.” I nodded to Aela and smiled at Fjoli, who sat at the table in the kitchen making awkward small talk. They both seemed grateful for other people to enter the room, simply because they probably had never spoken before then. Gunjar loomed in the corner, heating up some coffee that had been left out, but he was ever quiet.

            Leif grumbled as I set him on the ground. “He let Mama go. She wanted to talk to the dragon, and Papa said he had to protect her. So I had to go inside.”

            Lydia furrowed her brow, sitting beside Fjoli at the table, who patted her back as she was accompanied. Catriona sat beside me, and Aela slid her a little cup of golden mead with a raised eyebrow. Galmar laughed as he noticed, but he swiped the cup before Catriona could drink any. Aela raised her own glass to Galmar, and they both drank with a smile on their faces.

            Lydia never stopped watching Leif as he walked toward Gunjar with his hands in his little pockets. He pointed up at something on the shelf, and Gunjar handed him a little container of oats. Leif thanked him and walked toward the table, where he set the container in front of Fjoli and asked her to make him some oatmeal.

            As Fjoli stood to cook breakfast, she set Leif into the seat she had been in, right beside Lydia. The Battle-Maiden stared at Leif as he rested on his knees in the chair so he could reach the table, then he made himself comfortable watching his grandmother cook. Lydia tapped his hand to gain his attention.

            “Leif, what did you say about your mama?” she asked, her voice quiet and curious.

            He looked up at her in confusion. “About the dragon?” When Lydia nodded, he sighed. “Uncle Cass was going to kick me across Windhelm, and a dragon flew over us. Uncle Cass had to go fight it, but Mama wanted to go too so she could talk to the dragon. They were fighting because he didn’t want Mama to come with him. He told Papa to come get her, but Papa told me to go inside and tell you that they all went to fight a dragon.”

            Aela set her feet on the ground, which had previously been propped up on the table. “They went to fight a dragon?” she practically shouted. “Farkas loves dragons! He wanted to fight one!” She stood from her seat, sort of bouncing from foot to foot eagerly as she peered out of the door frame. “How long ago did they leave, squirt? I want to know what happened.”

            Leif sighed. “I don’t know. A little while ago.”

            “Twenty minutes, maybe.” Lydia added. “Or at least, that’s when Leif came to me.”

            Aela nodded. “How long do dragon fights take, Lydsie?”

            Lydia sighed, rolling her eyes at the nickname. “Depends on the dragon.” She sliced some bread and passed it to Catriona, who began to eat it as she stared at everyone in the room as they spoke. “Some dragons take just a few minutes to defeat. Others can take a while. Cass and I spent three hours fighting a single dragon once.”

            “Three hours?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as I took a sip of coffee, which Galmar had set in front of me moments before. “An awful long time to spend on a giant lizard, isn’t it?”

            Lydia nodded her head from side to side. “Well, it kept flying away and healing before it returned. This was before Cass and I had much experience fighting dragons. He didn’t know the shout that bound the beasts to the ground, and I hadn’t learned to attack the wings first. It’s systematic; slaying dragons is a patient and strategic art that takes years of practice.”

            Aela snorted as she peered down the hallway. “Oh, please. It’s slaughtering flying lizards for sport and looting their bones and scales for coin. That’s hardly an art.”

            “Whatever you say, huntress.” Lydia said, rolling her eyes and suppressing a small laugh.

            Galmar dropped into the seat beside Lydia. “I think it’s an art.” he said, shrugging to Lydia when she offered him a grateful glance. “I’ve seen a dragon or two in my time, and I wouldn’t go out to fight them willingly as you and your husband have for so long.” He raised an eyebrow at Aela, who had also become one of his favorite young warriors. “Of course, I’m just an old man. What do I know?”

            “Old men are the wisest.” Aela said simply, her eyes never leaving the hall. “The people I’ve admired most throughout my life were old men.”

            Lydia snorted. “How many old men could you possibly admire, Aela?”

            Aela shot her a quick glance, one that said a thousand curses, but also conveyed that Lydia was at a loss for not having known the people that she had. “Kodlak Whitemane was an old man, and he was the strongest and most level-headed person I’ve ever known. He had the patience to keep our lot of ruffians in check, and even when the Rot was consuming him from the inside, he got up and made sure everyone was safe and in their beds before he retired for the night.” She paused, her jaw clenching for just a moment before she loosened it again. “And Skjor was an old man. He knew everything about the things he cared about. He didn’t stop until he was an expert, on everything ranging from lore to battle strategy to individuals he cared for. He knew everything.”

            I smirked, taking another swig of my coffee as I watched Fjoli set a bowl of oatmeal in front of Leif, who stared up at her in thanks and then picked up a spoon to begin to eat. I turned to Aela. “I agree with you, huntress. Old men are the wisest.” I gave Galmar a wink. “Of course, I’m biased.”

            Catriona cocked her head to the side. “Are you saying that because you’re old, Grandpa?”

            Fjoli and Gunjar laughed, shaking their heads at Catriona’s words. She’d never had a filter, and much like her father, she always said whatever she thought before thinking about it. I nodded to her. “Yes. I say it because I’m old.”

            The conversation around me continued, but I found it difficult to pay attention as something stirred in my chest. I couldn’t quite place an adjective to describe the feeling, for it was indescribable. It was like a piece of me had shriveled and died. A part of my soul had burnt and flaked away, had drifted down through my body and rested in my stomach. A piece of me had died, and my brow furrowed as I tried to understand what it was.

            I stared into my cup of coffee, the dark liquid catching the light that pooled into the room through open windows and making my reflection visible on the surface. I watched my own expression change, from contentedness to confusion, and I shook my head at myself, hoping to understand why I felt the way I felt suddenly. I’d never experienced such a sensation, to feel so immediately empty in the middle of such a happy moment, and I wanted it to stop.

            I looked up from my cup and my reflection, and my eyes happened to catch Fjoli’s. Though the conversation around us still carried, we only saw each other. Her hand was over her own chest, her eyes wide and concerned as she stared back at me. She felt it, too, and I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

            It occurred to me then, and perhaps to her too, that the two things we had in common were not present in the room, but instead out fighting a dragon. I was suddenly struck with worry, fear that the piece of me I felt wither and fade was one of my children dying in the fields outside while I sat at a table with a warm cup of coffee in my hands.

            I pushed the cup away from me, momentarily off-put by the thought. When my gaze returned to Fjoli’s, she had leaned back against the stove, supporting all of her weight on the palm of one hand, which she’d placed behind her to catch herself when she staggered back, likely having made the same assumption I just had.

            “Leif.” I said, interrupting the conversation around me. “What did you say your mother and your uncle were doing just before they left to fight a dragon?”

            “Arguing.” the small boy mumbled around a mouthful of oatmeal. He held his spoon in his little hand, shrugging before he took another bite. “Like always.”

            Fjoli shook her head at me, her brows furrowed in confusion still. “What were they arguing about, Leif?” she asked.

            Leif sighed as he chewed his oatmeal. “I don’t know. Mama had a dream, and she wanted to talk to a dragon. Uncle Cass told her he didn’t want her to come.” He swallowed. “I don’t know why she likes him.”

            Lydia laughed, as did Galmar and Gunjar. She tapped his little hand. “You don’t like your uncle?”

            Leif looked up at Lydia, measuring whether or not he should say anything. “I like him enough.” he said finally, taking another bite of his oatmeal. “I don’t like when people are mean to Mama.”

            Lydia nodded, a smile ever present on her face. “Is he usually mean to your mama?”

            Leif sighed again. “She’s a good lady. He’s not nice to her like he should be.”

            Lydia nodded, patting Leif’s back. “How about I have a nice chat with your uncle, huh? Tell him he has to be nice to your mama, or I’ll throw him in the Keep.”

            After a moment of thought, Leif shook his head. “No. Mama would miss him.” He grumbled incoherently. “I’ll just be quiet.”

            Aela huffed and returned to her seat, shaking her head when Gunjar offered her some coffee. “This is taking forever.”

            The emptiness in my chest was still present, but slightly less so. Fjoli seemed to have relaxed as well, and she looked at me with curious eyes, asking silently if I had felt it too, or if she’d just imagined it. I nodded to her, assuring that I’d felt the same thing she had.

            Galmar’s gaze caught my attention, and I turned to greet his furrowed brow. I shrugged slowly, explaining that I didn’t know what was happening, and he grimaced in confusion. I looked back down at the table, blinking in confusion because I’d never felt something like this before. I tried to rationalize it, because when Cassius was nearly killed so many years ago, I’d been entirely unaware.

            _Nearly_ killed, I thought to myself. I didn’t feel anything then because he wasn’t killed. My heart pulsed at the thought, the image in my head of both of my children as pale as the snow that covered Windhelm causing me to ache for just a moment, and then I shook my head, forcing the image away.

            “Ulfric.”

            Galmar’s voice brought me out of my thoughts, and though it was a quiet call, it gained the attention of the entire room. I returned his stare. “Yes, friend?”

            He raised an eyebrow. “Everything alright?”

            I took a breath, swallowing the spit that had collected in my mouth before I answered. “Of course, Galmar. I’m fine.”

            Though that seemed to dismiss the curiosity of the rest of the room, Galmar’s eyes stayed locked with mine. He narrowed his eyes, trying to measure what was the truth and what was a lie. I let my gaze fall to the children, then returned it immediately to him, and he understood. He looked away from me, one final look promising that he’d revisit the topic later.

            It was then that the door to the living quarters creaked open and heavy footsteps came down the hall. Aela sat up, bouncing her feet eagerly in anticipation as she waited for her husband to return and tell his tale of dragon slaying.

            And it was Farkas who came into the frame first, followed shortly after by Cassius. The smiles of the room faded as we assessed the tears dried on their faces, having left glistening streaks that ran down their cheeks and necks. I panicked suddenly, not seeing my daughter or her husband having returned and fearing that the pang I’d felt in my chest was not an overreaction.

            But they appeared, too, Karalissa first and then Vilkas. He sort of clung to her, struggling to suppress his continuous tears. He didn’t look around the room as the other three did. He looked only at Karalissa, as if looking away for a moment would cause her to disappear.

            Leif set his spoon down, craning his neck to look at his father. “What’s wrong, Papa?”

            Vilkas didn’t respond, but Cassius cleared his throat. “Will you take the children from the room, Gunjar?”

            The steward nodded, gathering both of the children and guiding them from the room and down the hall. Karalissa stroked Leif’s hair as he passed her, though he was preoccupied with trying to figure out why his father was crying.

            When the children were out of earshot, Cassius took the seat beside Lydia, burying his face in his hands and hunching over his knees. She placed her hand on his back, looking around at everyone and begging for answers. “What happened, Cass? What’s going on?”

            Things were silent as Farkas took a seat beside Aela, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and hugging her against his chest. She was just as confused, staring up at the large Nord and trying to understand the expression on his face. I watched as Karalissa pulled away from Vilkas gently and walked toward Fjoli, reaching past her to retrieve a glass.

            I watched Vilkas’ face as he removed his armored gloves to wipe his face with his hands. He set them on the table before him as he sat, and Karalissa returned to stand behind him, setting a glass of mead in front of him. He took a long swig as she wiped his face with a damp rag, another thing she’d retrieved in her trip across the kitchen. She ran the cloth over his face in an attempt to calm him as he took ragged breaths, struggling to calm himself from some unknown thing that had caused the meltdown.

            Lydia shook her head. “Cass?” she asked, running her hand over Cassius’ hair. “What happened?”

            He sat up, shaking his head slowly and grimacing. It wasn’t an angry grimace, but one of confusion. “She absorbed the soul.” he said quietly. “Karalissa absorbed it. Not me.”

            The room was deafeningly quiet for a long time. Then, Vilkas broke the silence. “It killed her.” he whispered, likely from fear that his voice would shake. “The soul killed her.”

            Karalissa pressed the rag against his forehead, and he leaned back to rest his head against her stomach. “I’m fine, Vilkas. Everything is okay now.”

            “It’s _not_ okay.” Vilkas said, furrowing his brow. His voice cracked as he said the last word, and he turned to look up at her. “It’s not.”

            Lydia stared around at all of us, and though we were all confused, no one was more than her. “I don’t…I don’t understand.” She ran her hand over Cassius’ hair. “Karalissa absorbed the dragon soul?”

            “Yes.” Farkas said, his hand on Aela’s back. “It was horrible. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

            Vilkas choked on another sob, struggling to stifle it. “I don’t know if I can do that again, Kara. That was…too close. I don’t—”

            “It only happens the first time, Vil.” Cassius mumbled.

            Lydia shook her head. “I-I don’t—what happened?”

            “She absorbed the soul when we killed the damned thing.” Vilkas spat, his outward emotion transitioning to anger to mask the sadness he had previously displayed. “She was dead in the snow. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t move.”

            Karalissa put her hand against his face, pressing the rag to his forehead with her other hand. “Vilkas, stop.”

            He sucked in another stuttering breath. “I can’t…I can’t lose you, Kara. I won’t s-survive it.” Vilkas shook his head, struggling to make the tears stop.

            My gaze met Fjoli’s, her confused stare identical to the faces of everyone else who had been in the kitchen prior to their return. Then, my eyes found Galmar’s. He was uncomfortable, likely at the sight of Vilkas crying the way he was. In all the years we’d known him, he’d always been a gruff and rugged man who expressed little emotion aside from anger. And even though I’d always known he loved my daughter more than he loved himself, to see him like this was off-putting.

            Cassius, too, was behaving in a way I’d never known him to. My son was a man of arrogance, a man who valued his ego and his pride over his own comfort, and he frequently bottled up the things he had to say because he felt that saying them would make him weak. He was more like me than Karalissa was, and so it was easier to understand him and the things he felt. Even still, I couldn’t comprehend the look in his eyes, so distant and morose. I couldn’t fathom any idea of how to comfort him because he wasn’t himself.

            “We have to go to Paarthurnax, Lydia.” Cassius mumbled, finally meeting his wife’s gaze. “He’ll know what to do.”

            Vilkas shook his head. “No. This has been enough.” He placed his hand over Karalissa’s, pulling it down to place against his chest. “I won’t risk something like this happening again.”

            Cassius huffed, shutting his eyes for a moment, and then opening them again. “It doesn’t happen every time, Vilkas.”

            “No, damnit!” Vilkas nearly shouted. “I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have—” He shook his head again, trying to place his words in an order that made sense. “I let her walk right up to a dragon, and she died.”

            “And that’s my fault, Vilkas.” Cassius said quietly. “Not yours.”

            “It is my fault.” Vilkas mumbled. “I’m supposed to protect her. I’m supposed to keep her safe from things that can hurt her.”

            Cassius exhaled sharply in irritation. “And what do you think I’ve done every day since the day she was born? And I let her waltz right up to a gods damned dragon.” He shook his head. “But we have to go see Paarthurnax, Vil. We have to—”

            “We can’t.” Vilkas said. “We can’t go see another dragon, Cass. I can’t let her do that.”

            Karalissa pushed Vilkas’ hair away from his face. “What about what I want, Vilkas?”

            He turned toward her, his eyes wide as he stared up at her. “I’m sorry, Kara. I’ll follow you wherever you want to go, and you know that.” She nodded to confirm that she did know, and he shook his head. “But I won’t let you walk into death. I won’t watch that again. I can’t.”

            The three of them continued to talk, Cassius trying to persuade the lot to travel to the Throat of the World and Vilkas refusing, and around them, the rest of us stared in silent confusion. They shut us out, forgot we were there, and we became spectators to a display of emotion that wasn’t meant to be shared.

            Finally, when I saw tears form in my daughter’s eyes, I stood from my seat. “That’s enough.” I said with a firm voice, gaining the attention of everyone in the room. I gestured for Karalissa to take a seat, and she sat beside Vilkas, her eyes on the tabletop.

            I took a long breath, pinching the bridge of my nose with my thumb and index finger. Then, I looked only at my daughter. “Tell us what happened, Karalissa.”

            She looked up at me, her bushy brows furrowed for a moment before she nodded. She swallowed, then took a breath. “Last night, I had a dream. I need everyone to understand me when I say I never dream. I can only recall dreaming twice in my entire life, and they both came before very pivotal days in my life.” She glanced at Vilkas, then at Aela. “The first dream was years ago, in the middle of the war. I dreamt that I was standing on the Skyforge with Aela and Farkas, and Vilkas’ body was perched atop the flames. It was his funeral, the same way that we put Skjor and Kodlak to rest. And a moment later, I was in a field with Kodlak Whitemane, and he told me that I needed to protect his sons, that I needed to take care of them.

            “And the very next day was the ambush in Dawnstar, the one you sent for Cassius to aid your troops in. Vilkas and Farkas went along with him and Vilkas died out there, Ulfric. He was killed by Imperial soldiers, and I knew it was going to happen.” Karalissa shook her head to gather her thoughts, or shake the images from her head. “And then last night, I dreamt of dragons. I dreamed that I was…bare and in the snow, standing in this vast clearing before a wall, or a piece of a wall, rather. And there was a language scribbled on the wall, markings I couldn’t understand. And then a dragon landed on the wall, and it perched itself there as it spoke to me, and there were dragons circling overhead, releasing these…cries of agony and relief together, in this harmonized pitched that sounded like a song meant for me.” She pursed her lips, looking at me. “Reborn and recreated. That’s what the dragon said.

            “And then not even an hour ago, Cassius hauls Leif outside and threatens to kick him across Windhelm, and a dragon flies overhead. And I…I wanted to know what the dream meant. I wanted to know if the songs were meant for me, and so I went with him. Cassius told us to stay, but we went anyway. I wanted to talk to the dragon. He said they never talk to him, but I thought that maybe they would talk to me.

            “It did.” she whispered, a smile stretching across her face for just a moment. “I spoke to the dragon, and it understood me. It answered me. And then this…yellow glow emitted from the dragon’s corpse when it perished, and it elevated above it and flew past Cassius and toward me. And I can’t…I can’t remember anything after that. Not until Cassius was speaking to me about Paarthurnax.”

            Cassius and Vilkas exchanged a glance, both of their mouths pressed into a firm grimace. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Vilkas nodded to Cassius slowly. Cass took a deep breath, then he looked at Karalissa. “When I absorbed my first dragon soul, I was knocked unconscious. But I was alone, and I don’t know how long it was before the guards finally noticed that I wasn’t dead. But that’s what happened to you, Karalissa. You absorbed the soul.”

            “Tell her the rest.” Vilkas said, his eyes locked with Cassius’.

            Cassius clenched his jaw for a few seconds, then he relaxed. “You fell to the ground, and you vomited onto the snow. Vilkas pulled you to your feet, and he was holding you against his chest when your head lulled back. And he…fell back onto the snow and begged for me to tell him what was happening, but I couldn’t speak. He screamed that you weren’t breathing, and he pumped your chest with his hands to try and bring you back, but you were just…dead, Karl. You died.”

            Karalissa shook her head. “I’m sorry you all thought I was dead, but—”

            Farkas cleared his throat. “You died, Lissa. We didn’t _think_ you were dead. You _were_.” He looked at her with somber eyes, making it clear that he’d really thought he’d lost her. “Vilkas was screaming and rocking your body back and forth, and I cried, and Cassius was panicking and hitting himself in the head. And then you came back, just like that. And the world…shook.”

            “That was the Greybeards.” Cassius said firmly. “The Greybeards summoned you because they felt the birth of a new Dovahkiin.”

            Lydia shook her head. “Cassius, you’re the Dragonborn.”

            He shook his head slowly. “I’m not the only Dovahkiin. Our blood is identical, mine and Karl’s.” Cassius looked at me finally, nodding once to acknowledge me. “Our blood is yours, Ulfric.”

            My chest grew heavy as he spoke, and I shook my head as I leaned back in my chair. “I am not Dragonborn, Cassius. I was an apprentice to the Greybeards. They taught me the Way of the Voice.”

            Cassius nodded. “And did you ever ask why your father brought you to them? Did you ever ask why he took you to High Hrothgar instead of…I don’t know, the Bard’s College or some shit?”

            I blinked as I tried to process my own thoughts. “I always assumed that he brought me there because…I don’t know, my tutor had read something to me about old Nord heroes, ones who could wield their voice as a weapon, and I’d expressed an interest. My mother died, and I didn’t think he wanted to be around me.”

            “And why were you so skilled?” Cassius asked. “Why were you able to master the Thu’um so quickly?”

            “Because I was dedicated.” I said quickly. “Because I threw myself into my studies to avoid the grief I felt for my mother. Because Arngier took me under his wing, because he kept a close eye on me.”

            Cassius blinked at me. “Why?”

            And then, it clicked. A memory of Arngier, pulling me into the hall after I’d knocked Wulfgar off of his feet when I asked him a question. _“You must learn to control your voice, Ulfric.”_ he had said. _“The Way of the Voice is a force that is powerful and strange. You must only use it to worship the gods that gifted you with it, and never to hurt anyone. Yours is a voice that is more powerful than any of ours.”_ He had placed his hand against my face. _“Promise me, Ulfric.”_

            And I had promised, and I’d lasted a long time before I broke the promise. And even now, I could speak a word so nonchalantly and snatch a man’s blade from his hand. But that wasn’t because I was Dragonborn. It was because I was a diligent student. It was because I was determined to be the best, and I’d absorbed a lot of information. It was because I was trained to use the Voice, not born with it. Wasn’t it?

            “Ulfric.” Galmar called, his voice low, but again, gaining the attention of the entire room and directing it toward me. I blinked, but I continued to stare at the tabletop until he called to me again. “Ulfric, are you alright?”

            I looked up at him, offering him a small nod before I turned to Karalissa. “Are you alright now?”

            She nodded. “I’m fine, Ulfric.” Karalissa looked up at Vilkas, placing her hand over his closed fist on the table. “I really am. I’m okay.”

            Vilkas relaxed as she spoke, just enough to be noticeable. He nodded, finally, and he looked at Cassius. “What do we do now?”

            “We go to Paarthurnax.” Cassius said, rather matter-of-factly. “The Greybeards have summoned her, and me really. We have to go to the Throat of the World because Paarthurnax will know what to say. He’ll have an explanation. And the Greybeards need to teach you to control it, Karl. You can kill someone with the words that come out of your mouth, and I doubt you want to do that.”

            Karalissa shook her head. “I don’t.”

            Cassius nodded, and then he turned to me. “You need to come with us, Ulfric. I think you’re Dragonborn, too, and that’s why Karl and I are. I think that the three of us were supposed to go to Sovngarde together to defeat Alduin. I think Alduin attacked Helgen that day because all three of us were there. I think…I think the reason things were different is because I was the only one who had absorbed a soul. I think you can absorb them, too.”

            I looked around the room, greeting the gazes of everyone, all either concerned or utterly confused. I tried to make sense of it for myself, of everything that had been said and explained in combination with the things I already knew about myself. I had an inborn ability to shout, a gift that I’d simply been born with, but maybe it was for a reason much larger and much more profound than just chance. Maybe it was fate.

            Finally, my eyes found Galmar’s. He watched my face with the attentiveness he always had, and when I furrowed my brow to explain that I really didn’t know what to do, he pursed his lips. Then, he nodded to me once, silently encouraging me to do what I thought was best, and at the same time urging me to go.

            “Alright.” I said, looking back to my son. “Let’s go.”


	2. Seven Thousand Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group stops for a break on their way up the seven thousand steps. 
> 
> POV: Cassius Felstead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated in forever. I've been busy with work in addition to being relatively uninspired with this story.
> 
> I promise to try to keep up with regular updates.

     When I was a young man, I frequently wandered the streets of Solitude alone, usually when Karalissa was in class and I was supposed to be. One of my favorite pastimes was talking to the beggars, who were always willing to share a story for a septim or two, and I frequently brought them a few loaves of my mother’s bread to help them make it through the day, or I’d swipe some mead from Corpulus to help perk them up a little. 

     One man I met told me something that stuck with me for years. After a few mugs of ale, he found the voice to tell me that the happiest moment of your life happens just before the worst moment of your life takes place. That everything will go perfectly, exactly as you planned it to, and it goes that way to make you feel safe, to make you feel like you’re on top of the world just before the storm of shit that was predestined for you smacks you in the face. 

      This is perhaps the reason that when I rode in the wagon to Helgen, I dreamt of the week before, my memories coming in flashes of greens and purples and red. In one moment, I can see the night sky, speckled with astronomical lights and glazed with auroras that reflected the lightest parts of our souls. In another moment, I see trees rushing past me, a bow drawn beside me as Karalissa and I ran to catch an elk. Even then, I knew it was a dream, but I tried to pretend it was real, even if it was only a moment longer. 

     This is perhaps the reason that when I realized my fate, my predetermined inscription that was written years before I took my first breath, I savored every moment I spent with Lydia. Even when we were terrible to each other, when we pushed each other’s buttons to piss one another off and flat-out ignored each other every other day, I cherished her company. Under the tough bravado, she was intelligent and empathetic, and she just knew me, without having to know anything about me. And it was why I couldn’t take her with me, why I left her in Breezehome by herself when I summoned Odahviing to carry me to Skuldofn. If I’d known a year before then that I would end up there, maybe I would have left sooner. I would have run up the seven thousand steps the second I learned to walk if it meant knowing her just a little longer. Because in all honesty, I would have taken the pain, the fire, the death all again if it meant I could look at her one more time before I nodded to the scaly, red beast, ready to mount and ride into the unknown that was decided to be my destiny. 

     And now, when I climbed the seven thousands steps for the first time in a very, very long time, I looked back at my sister. She walked with her hand entwined in Vilkas’, Ulfric and Galmar trailing behind them and glancing up at me for direction every moment or two. And I looked at Lydia, so beautiful even around the worry that she wore on her brow, because we both knew. We knew that speaking to the Greybeards would begin a new journey for me, for all of us, and I didn’t honestly know whether or not I wanted to embark on it. 

     I nearly died in Sovngarde, and I would have if it hadn’t been for the ancient Nord heroes that fought alongside me. And I knew, now, that it was supposed to be my father and my sister with me, and they’d simply stepped in to assist me because I would have died if they hadn’t. And maybe I was supposed to die up there. Maybe I was supposed to die so Karalissa and Ulfric could live without the burden that this fate brought. 

     I often wondered where to draw the line between life and death. I’d always told anyone who asked that if you weren’t seeking your own destiny, you weren’t living. For, in many ways, if you are not living the way the fates had planned for you, are you really living at all? But in the same way, if the life you were destined to live isn’t a life you want, are you living or dying? 

     All I knew was that I loved my sister and my father, and I loved my wife and my daughter, and I loved my life as it was. I didn’t know what this new life, one where my sister and father could also absorb the souls of dragons, would bring, and the not knowing was what made the thought of being eager and excited so far gone. 

     I placed my hands on my hips, struggling to control my panting. After years of what Karalissa called ‘retirement’, I was actually out of shape. I slowed to a stop three-quarters of the way up the mountain, letting my head roll back as I tried to catch my breath. 

     Lydia put her hand on my back. “Maybe we should stop and rest, Cass.” 

     “No, no.” I breathed, shaking my head. “I’m good. Let’s keep going.” 

     Ulfric cleared his throat. “Actually, son, if it’s all the same to you, I think we should stop and talk for a moment.” 

     I glanced at Karalissa, who nodded her head from side to side to tell me she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing. With that, we stopped in a clearing past the set of steps we’d been treading. I flopped back onto the snow, enjoying the way the cold felt against my burning skin. Galmar and Ulfric rested on a rock near to me, and Lydia leaned against the tree behind me. 

     “It’s beautiful up here.” Karalissa said quietly from where she stood, on the edge of the mountain side. Vilkas stood beside her, his hand on the small of her back. She looked up at him for a moment, smiling softly before turning back to the scenery. 

     “I don’t remember the climb being this long.” I said, looking up at Lydia. 

     She smirked. “That’s because you were young and fit when we used to climb this mountain. You’re old and fat now, Cass. Of course you can’t climb a mountain the way you used to.” 

     I snorted, tossing a handful of snow at her. Lydia exhaled sharply in quiet humor as the snow spattered against her legs, and she shook her head at me. I had always loved climbing to High Hrothgar with her, simply because I loved to complain and she loved to mock me. I watched her face for a moment, the way she looked at me expressing that she was experiencing the same nostalgia I was. When I smiled, she kicked the snow and sent it flying to land on my face and stick to my beard. 

     “Agh.” I muttered, chuckling to myself as I wiped my face. “Come on, baby. That wasn’t nice.” 

     “Sorry.” Lydia mumbled, crouching down to brush the snow off of my cheeks before she returned to her leaning position. 

     Ulfric cleared his throat. “I have a question for you, Cass.” 

     “Sure, Ulfric.” I said, folding my arms behind my head. “Ask away.” 

     When he didn’t speak, I turned to look up at my father, who had turned his attention toward the summit. He had a distant look in his eyes, as if he were somewhere else entirely, alone with his own thoughts. A long time passed before Ulfric said anything. He simply stared past us and up at the mountain. 

     “Ulfric.” Galmar said quietly, touching Ulfric’s forearm to regain his attention. 

     Ulfric turned back to us, his brow furrowed as he looked down at me. “How did you discover that you were the Dragonborn? How did you…how did you know what to think?” 

     I shrugged slightly, raising my eyebrows. “Jarl Balgruuf sent me to combat a dragon at the Western Watchtower pretty soon after I arrived in Whiterun. It was…maybe a week after Helgen? I went back to Riften to look for Karl once you’d been returned to Windhelm, and when I couldn’t find her, I went to Riverwood to find Ralof. His sister asked me to go to Whiterun to relay the news to Balgruuf, and I had nothing without Karl, so I just went. 

     “Farengar sent me to Bleak Falls Barrow to retrieve the dragonstone, and when I got back, Irileth said a dragon had attacked the watchtower, and Balgruuf asked me to help her. It was because I’d seen a dragon before, because I’d been face to face with one and none of his men had. So I followed behind Irileth. I didn’t plan to help at all. I was done with dragons, and I couldn’t find Karl, and I was irritable, so I had simply planned to…I don’t know. I didn’t want to fight the dragon. I didn’t want to do it all over again, so I kind of hung back. 

     “There wasn’t a dragon when we arrived, so I climbed to the top of the tower, and I watched as it flew back toward us. And I got a couple of swings in, but ultimately, it was Irileth that slayed the dragon, after it ate a couple of her guards, of course. Stupid, faceless idiots got eaten, and Irileth was pissed. 

     “I don’t know how to explain how it feels the first time you absorb a dragon soul. This…light is entangled in the dragon’s corpse, and as its skin flakes away, the light flows outward and into you. It’s…like fire penetrates your chest, and your blood is highly flammable. The fire spreads outward to the tips of your finger and to your toes, and when the light stops, the fire extinguishes. But then, I remember waking up, because I’d been knocked unconscious and they’d dragged my body to the pile of dead guards they’d begun to assemble. When I woke, there was this…stirring in my chest, like there was another person inside of me, banging against my ribcage to be released, but struggling to make itself comfortable.  

     “I remember just…writhing in pain because it was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever felt. It was like I wasn’t myself anymore, but I was more myself than ever. Like I was someone different entirely, but just the same as I’d always been. Does that make sense?” 

     “Yes.” Karalissa said quietly, never turning back to look at me. 

     I sighed. “It was one of the guards that told me of the legends, and then the Greybeards summoned me, and I went. It was the Greybeards who taught me everything I needed to know. They’ll do the same for both of you.” 

     “We don’t know if I’m Dragonborn, Cass.” Ulfric said, shaking his head slightly. “This is just a theory of yours.” 

     I snorted. “It’s a very logical theory. Your children can absorb the souls of dragons, why shouldn’t you be able to?” 

     “What about Fjoli?” Galmar asked. “Could it not be her?” 

     Karalissa sighed. “It could be. It just seems unlikely.” 

     “Agreed.” I added. 

     Ulfric furrowed his brow. “But…why? Aside from the fact that I can shout.” 

     I shook my head. “It’s just a feeling. I can’t explain it.” 

     “I can.” Karalissa said rather suddenly, earning all of our attentions. She never turned back to look at us, but instead stared over the side of the mountain and down at Whiterun. “I’ve never…I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. I didn’t belong in Solitude; I never did. I didn’t belong in Riften. I know I belong with the Companions, but there’s still something off, something wrong about the way I feel when I’m surrounded by my Shield-Siblings. I can’t explain why, I’ve just always felt that way, no matter what evidence I have against it.  

     “Ma is a content person. She adapts to whatever life she’s given, and she doesn’t stray away from it. She was a mother when she was a mother. She was a wife when she was a wife. She was a victim when she was a victim. She’s textbook. She’s factual. She’s exactly what she’s supposed to be. And you, Ulfric, you’re fiction. You’re elaborate, and there’s a story behind everything you do. There’s a sequel to each of your adventures, there’s a twist of fate, a happy ending, despite the tragic content of the story that comes before the beautiful conclusion. 

     “And Cassius is just like you. He’s a man of complexity, a man of stories. He’s always been the center of attention because he settles for nothing less. He’s never been satisfied with being a bystander, so he takes fate into his own hands. He does what he does because he wants what he wants, and he wants to do right by the people he cares about. And I’m…I’m a mother when I’m a mother, but it’s because I have a son who needs me and I love him, not because I have to be a mother. I’m a wife when I’m a wife, but it’s because I’m stupidly in love with Vilkas and he makes me feel like I don’t have to be anything special or extraordinary or important. I’m textbook because I’m fictional. I’m what I am because of the stories of my life. 

     “I know…I know you probably think I’m more like Ma, Ulfric, but I don’t. I think I’m like _you_. I just want to belong somewhere, and I feel like I belong when I’m with you and Cass. I’ve done a lot of thinking about all of this during our climb, and I think I feel this way because the three of us are supposed to be something greater than what we are, and we’re supposed to do it together.” She turned back to look at us, then. “I know I sound crazy, but it’s just…a feeling. It’s supposed to be the three of us. It was always me and Cass, or you and Cass, Ulfric. I think it’s supposed to be all of us. Together. And I think this is why. 

     “I think Cass had it right.” she added, turning back to the landscape before her. Vilkas placed his hand against her back again, perhaps to remind her that he was there, or perhaps to encourage her to continue. My sister rarely said so much about herself in this way because she thought it was selfish to talk about the things she wanted. “I think the reason Alduin attacked Helgen that day was because we all were there. I think the reason you and Cass were in the same wagon was because you two were supposed to be close. I think the reason the fates brought my brother to Farkas and Vilkas was because we were never supposed to be apart. I think the reason we’re all here now is because there’s something bigger than the life we know. There’s something more, somewhere we were supposed to be ages ago. Somewhere we were always supposed to be.” 

     “Somewhere we belong.” I said, watching my sister with fixed eyes. 

     Karalissa sighed, nodding her head slightly. “Yes, brother. Somewhere we _belong_.” 

     “And you think this is it?” Ulfric asked her, looking up at the mountain’s peak again. “You think we belong with the Greybeards?” 

     Karalissa was quiet for a moment, and she looked up at Vilkas, as if she were silently asking if she should say what she thought. Vilkas nodded, smiling slightly like he was reminding her she always should. Karalissa turned back toward us, folding her arms across her chest as she walked in our direction. 

     “I felt something when I spoke to that dragon, Cass.” she explain. “A moment before it died, it bumped its nose against my hand, and to me, that was saying more than the actual words it spoke. It trusted me, and I…I trusted that it wouldn’t hurt me, even though you and Vilkas both thought it would. From what the books say, and from what you’ve told me, dragons are supposed to be violent beasts who attack humans. But this dragon wasn’t. It was gentle and kind, and it looked at me with admiration just before it transitioned into death. It knew me. 

     “I belong with dragons, Cass.” she said finally. “I belong with dragons because I’m Dragonborn, and I’ve always felt out of place because of it. But I don’t feel that way now, brother. I feel like…me. Just like you said: I’m someone different entirely, but I’m exactly who I’ve always been.” 

     I pulled myself off of the ground, standing and wiping the snow off of my armor. “Well, let’s not waste any more time, then.” I said, and I nodded for all of them to follow me as I continued up the steps. 


	3. Night Without Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At High Hrothgar, the gang discusses exactly why Cassius and Karalissa are Dragonborn, which is a shocking discovery for Ulfric. Later, Leif needs to speak with Vilkas alone.
> 
> POV: Karalissa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, friends!!
> 
> Once again, I'm sorry for not updating in a zillion years. I've been relatively involved in school and work, on top of trying to work on an original story (entirely unrelated to Skyrim) and I've written several attempts at a Dark Brotherhood sequel (Cicero is dead! Cicero is born!).
> 
> I wanted to thank all of you to pushing Before the Storm to more than five hundred hits!!! Holy crap, you guys, that's insane! And Tale of Tongues is already at sixty-five with two chapters?????? What??????  
> In addition, thank you all for reading and leaving nice comments on Walk with the Shadows and Crime and Punishment. WwtS is really just there for me to write when I'm heckin' uninspired by ToT. I love Messala and Sapphire, but they're just not like Vilkalissa (OTP). I'm trying (struggling, honestly) to crank this story out for y'all, and now that I've gotten past the Greybeard stuff (which is what I was stuck on), I feel like I'll be able to update more regularly.
> 
> Now, since I left you all with a short Cass chapter, I've written an incredibly long Kara chapter.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading and supporting my work! If you loved Arabella and Cicero as much as I did, devitameatball wrote a story about what Cicero did when he left Arabella in Whiterun, after The Fight. It's definitely worth reading, especially when you're feeling a little....hungry. ;-) Oh my god, Danny Devita! I love your work!
> 
> Alright, guys. Here's the fic.

           I trailed at the back of the group as Cassius pulled open the door to High Hrothgar, nerves finally getting the better of me. I paused when Cassius held the door open for Ulfric, who entered cautiously with Galmar. Lydia glanced back at me and Vilkas, then offered Cassius a look to exchange silent conversation, as they often did. Cass nodded, then let the door close behind Lydia.

           He cleared his throat, scratching the back of his neck with the hand that did not remain on the knob. “You okay, Karl?”

           I nodded. “Yes, brother. I just…” I stole a glance at Vilkas, who hadn’t taken his eyes off of me since my apparent death. “I just need a moment. Can I meet you inside?”

          “Yeah.” Cass said, offering me a pat on my upper arm. “Take your time, kid. Nothing will happen without you.” I nodded again, watching as Cassius slipped inside the door, letting it click shut with a soft thud.

          I stood silently for a long time, folding and unfolding my arms every few minutes. I stared up at the large building before me, chiseled from dark stone and perched on the very edge of the mountain. It wasn’t quite to the top, and I took a step back to gaze up past the building at the summit, where the wind swirled the snow and made it nearly impossible to see.

          My pace backwards must have startled Vilkas, whose eyes never strayed away from me in my silence. “Kara?”

          Finally, I truly met his gaze. The flesh around his gray eyes was puffy, having not recovered entirely from that morning’s events. He very rarely cried, and I knew that he knew he looked disheveled, his hair tangled and dirty and the warpaint around his eyes running down his face. Still, he never reached up to fix it. He just watched.

          “Yes?” I asked, blinking a few times as I furrowed my brow, trying to shake the feeling of confusion in my stomach.

          “What is it?” he asked. I didn’t have to think about how to answer his question for very long. Vilkas and I had always known each other much better than we understood ourselves, and I understood what he was asking.

           I exhaled entirely, taking another breath before I answered. “I thought actually being here would feel different.” I explained, looking back up at the building. “It feels unfamiliar.”

          “Well, you’ve never been here.” Vilkas said with a soft half-smile. I rolled my eyes at him, smiling a little to myself. “Did you imagine you would feel like you’d been here before?”

          “Essentially, yes.” I looked at the door again, thankful for a moment alone with Vilkas after so many hours. “There are...there are things I need to say to you, Vilkas. Things I-I couldn’t say around my brother. Well, I mean I could have, but--I don’t know, it didn’t seem--.”

         Vilkas closed the two steps of distance between us quickly. He placed his hand against the side of my face. “Say what you need to say, Kara. I’m listening.”

         I took another breath. “I don’t...I don’t remember dying, Vilkas. It was like no time passed between the moment the soul came to me and the moment you were holding me on the ground.” I shook my head, reaching up to wipe away some of his smeared war paint. “I don’t remember dying, but I remember what it did to you. I’m so sorry, Vil--.”

        “Please, don’t tell me you’re apologizing for dying, Kara.” Vilkas said, laughing quietly. “It’s not as if you did it on purpose.”

        I blinked at him, confused again because I didn’t expect for him to laugh. “But, still, I didn’t mean to...scare you the way I did.”

        “You didn’t scare me.” Vilkas said, his smile fading. “I was...you died in my arms, Kara. It wasn’t a scare. It was very real.”

         “I’m sorry, Vilkas.” I said, resting my forehead against his chin. “I’m so sorry.”

          He laughed again, shaking his head. “Stop apologizing for something that wasn’t your fault.” He pulled my face away from him, cradling either side of my head with both of his hands. “Do you remember so long ago, when we had that fight in the hall outside of Aela’s room in Jorrvaskr.”

          I furrowed my brow. “Just before…”

          “Aye. Just before Kodlak died.” Vilkas took a deep breath. “I told you then that I wouldn’t apologize for the way I felt about you. I won’t now, either. I’m sorry that you saw how I reacted, and I’m sorry that you feel guilty for it, but I’d thought I’d lost you. You’re everything to me, Kara; my entire world. I won’t apologize for the way I felt when you were just...gone.

          “You’re okay now, and that’s all I care about. I just want you to be okay.” he added, nodding to me once to show that his mind wouldn’t change about that.

          I nodded, letting my head relaxed against his open palm. I looked at High Hrothgar again, then back at Vilkas. “What do you think I should do? What if...what if I’m wrong, Vilkas? What if I shouldn’t have come?” I shook my head slightly. “I need you to tell me what to do.”

          Vilkas thought for a moment, pursing his lips as his eyes roamed my face. “I think you should do what feels right. If you feel...that you belong with dragons, then you should be with dragons.” He ran his thumb over the scar across my right eye. “I’ll follow you wherever you want to go. If you want to go in, we’ll go in. If you want to leave, we’ll leave. I’ll complain the whole way down, though. It took hours to climb this damned mountain.”

          As a soft smile returned to his face, I laughed. “I love you.” I said finally, reaching up on my toes to kiss him.

          “And I love you, Karalissa.” he mumbled, pressing his forehead against mine for just a moment before he stepped away from me. He waited for me to decide what I wanted to do, just before I took his hand and guided him toward High Hrothgar.

          The door shut quietly behind us, and Vilkas and I both peered up at intricate carving along the inner stone walls. The sound of voices ahead caught my attention, one distinctly louder than the others that belonged to my brother, and Vilkas and I exchanged one more look before we walked forward.

          The room beyond was large, with high ceilings and steps surrounding the entire perimeter, aside from the hall leading out the way we came in. My brother stood with our little group before four old men, each wrapped in dark robes and adorning long, gray facial hair.

          The sound of our footsteps caught the attention of the entire room, and they all turned to watch as we approached. One of the older men stepped forward, slowly striding toward us until there was no distance at all.

          He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Dovahkiin.” he said quietly, causing the ground to quiver slightly beneath our feet. “We’ve been expecting you.”

          “Expecting me specifically?” I asked. “Or expecting the Dragonborn?” I glanced toward Cass, who also furrowed his brow at the question.

           “We felt the birth of a new Dragonborn.” he explained. “Seeing Cassius was simply...a pleasant surprise.” He stole a quick glance at Ulfric. “As it was to see you, Ulfric. It’s been many years.”

           “It has.” Ulfric said, his voice hushed.

           The man nodded, then he turned back to me. “Apologies, Dovahkiin. I am Master Arngeir. I speak for the Greybeards.” He took a step back. “Now, tell me: Why have you come?”

           I looked at Cass again, who nodded to me to say it was my job to answer. “I’m...answering your call, Master Arngeir.”

           “I see.” Arngeir said, tilting his head slightly as he watched me. “It is, or course, an honor to welcome another Dragonborn to High Hrothgar. We will do our best to teach you how to use your gift in fulfillment of your destiny.”

          “Yeah, I have a few questions about that.” Cassius interjected. “What exactly is going on?”

          Arngeir sighed, gesturing us to follow him away from the room we all stood in and toward a long hall. One of the rooms off to the side held a long table, carved from the same stone the entire building was. The Greybeards took seats around the head of the table, the four of them watching as we all spread out across the table and getting comfortable in the cold, stone seats.

          After a moment of silence, Arngeir spoke softly. “Cassius has informed us of the...surprising events that transpired this morning. Tell us, Dovahkiin, what you know of the Greybeards.”

          I pursed my lips. “I know what I’ve read in books, and what Cassius has told me.”

          “You don’t have to explain much to her, Arngeir.” Cassius added. “Karalissa is smart. She’ll catch on quickly.” He shifted in his seat, his hand quite obviously on Lydia’s leg under the table. “We need to understand what’s going on.”

         Arngeir nodded. “We can tell you all of what we know, but there is much we do not understand, either.”

         “Well, we need to speak to Paarthurnax, then.” Cass said. “He would know, wouldn’t he?”

         “I’m afraid Master Paarthurnax has left the Throat of the World.” Arngeir explained. “He informed us that he would be back, but not until after the new Dragonborn arrived.”

          Cass sat up straight from his previously slouched position. “Wait, you’re telling me that Paarthurnax knew she would absorb the soul?”

          “Paarthurnax knew that a new Dragonborn would arise. He mentioned nothing of knowing who he or she may be. Of course, that doesn’t mean he did not know, but instead that he kept that to himself.”

          Cassius slouched again, resting his face against his propped-up fist. “Well, that’s just great.”

          “Why did Paarthurnax leave?” Lydia asked. Aside from Cassius, who had quickly made himself comfortable in a place so familiar to him, Lydia was the only other person who looked entirely at ease in the presence of the Greybeards.

          “He did not tell us exactly why.” Arngeir said. “He only said that a new Dragonborn was meant to arise, and it was his duty to see that they discovered their abilities.”

          Cassius jerked his head back. “What the hell does that mean?”

          “Perhaps…” Vilkas finally spoke. “Perhaps Paarthurnax sent the dragon. It was rather...tame with Kara.”

          “Tame.” Arngeir echoed. “What would you compare a ‘tame’ dragon to?”

          Cass snorted. “Probably the asshole dragons that swoop in and destroy everything.” He gestured to his own missing eye, covered by a folded cloth that tied at the back of his head.

          “I see.” Arngeir said. “I must ask…” He turned to Ulfric, his eyes suddenly sad. “It has been so many years, Ulfric. You left on such...bad terms. Why have you come back with the Dragonborns?”

          Cassius and I exchanged a look at the words ‘bad terms’, never having heard that part of Ulfric’s story. Still, the High King sighed, gesturing to Cassius. “My son seems to have a...theory.”

          “Son?” Arngeir asked quietly, looking between Cassius and me before returning his gaze to Ulfric. “I didn’t know…”

          “Nobody does.” I clarified, exchanging a nod with Ulfric.

          “Yes.” my father added. “We...I thought it would be safer for them. I have many enemies, and very few friends, if you understand my meaning.”

          After a moment of silence, Arngeir sort of sunk back in his chair. His face had twisted from confusion to disbelief, and then total belief. Still, he sat in silence as Cassius continued to talk around him.

         “The theory Ulfric is referring to is that...well, I think the reason Karalissa and I are Dragonborn is because Ulfric is. His blood is our blood. Does that seem at all...possible?”

          Ulfric sighed. “I’ve told you, Cassius, I would know if I was Dragonborn. I know you have your ideas--.”

         “Very sound ideas, mind you.” Cassius retorted. “How else are you able to Shout? How else would you have the uncanny ability to learn the Way of the Voice?”

         “I’m a Tongue, Cassius. That doesn’t mean I have to be Dragonborn.”

         “But it makes sense! You’re the common element here, Ulfric. Karl and I can, and I think you should try to absorb a soul.”

         “I know you’re excited, Cass. I know that this is an exciting thing for you--.”

         “You think I’m excited?” Cassius demanded. “You think I’m happy with the fact that my little sister has to share the burden of this blood? It has it’s perks, but it’s...it’s barely manageable.”

        “And you’re suggesting that it’s my fault?” Ulfric argued, leaning toward Cassius across the table. He didn’t sound angry, as Cass did, but instead offended. “Even if your theory is correct, you’re suggesting that I would knowingly pass it on to my children?”

         Cassius scoffed. “Well, there’s no other logical explanation.”

         “You seem to continuously overlook Fjoli.”

          Now, Cassius laughed loudly, the sound causing the walls to shake slightly. “It’s not Ma.”

         “And how could you know?” Ulfric retorted, now growing angry. “You’ve hardly said a word to her about it, and now we’re here.”

         “It just happened this morning!”

         “You’ve been Dragonborn for six years!”

         “Let Arngeir speak.” I said rather loudly. I meant to be heard over their argument, but my voice was more powerful than I knew. The table slid away from me as I spoke, smashing into Cassius and Lydia across from me.

         The entire room stared at me, and though I felt Vilkas’ reassuring hand on my back, I knew he was just as shocked. “I...I’m sorry.” I whispered.

          Finally, Arngeir spoke. “Do not apologize for your gift, Dragonborn. We will teach you to control it.” He relaxed as Cassius pushed the heavy stone table back into place. “I promised your father I would never tell you, Ulfric. However, I don’t see much of an option any longer.”

         Ulfric’s forehead creased as his eyebrows raised. “What are you saying, Arngeir?”

          Arngeir took a deep breath before he continued. “The reason your father brought you to us was that he believed he was Dragonborn. It was a belief that he, his father, his father’s father, his father’s father’ father...they were all Dragonborn. There was never any evidence, though. His lineage traced back to Feldir the Old--”

         “Feldir the Old was a Tongue.” Cassius interjected.

          “But not Dragonborn.” Arngeir continued. “However, when your mother passed, you were just a boy. You had so much difficulty controlling your emotions, and with little control came the signs.”

         “Signs?” Galmar said after a moment of silence, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Signs of what?”

         Arngeir pursed his lips. “To hear your father tell it, you could send books flying across the room if you spoke quietly. He was worried that your abilities surpassed those of a Tongue, and he was right.” Arngeir shifted in his seat. “You likely remember our lessons, Cassius. Is this correct?”

          “Of course.” Cass mumbled.

         “Then, if you will, please explain to Ulfric how your lessons transpired.”

         Cass made a face, one of those particular Cass-faces that showed he didn’t particularly want to relay this information because he didn’t see the point in it. Still, he sat up and spoke, as Arngeir requested. “Well, it was typically Wulfgar that would teach me a word. He could just...wave his hand, and a word in Dovahzul would appear on the ground. When I look at a word, I just...know what it says, and so I learned the words of power like that. Then, Wulfgar would gift me with his knowledge of the word, and then train me to harness its strength.”

         Ulfric’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t learn any other way? Not on your own?”

         “Nah.” Cass said. “I tried just reading words myself, but without a dragon’s soul, I couldn’t truly understand the meaning of a new word. Someone has to gift you with the knowledge.”

        Arngeir nodded slowly, his gaze remaining on Ulfric. “And how did you learn, Ulfric?”

        My father was silent for a long time, staring blankly at the table before him. His brow was furrowed in confusion, or disbelief, really. Cass and Lydia exchanged a look, then my brother caught my gaze. I shrugged, unsure of anything that was happening, to be completely honest.

        After a solid minute without movement or speech, Galmar placed his large hand over Ulfric’s forearm. “Ulfric.”

        Ulfric’s silence held strong, his eyes never straying from the table. Lydia tried next. “Ulfric? Are you alright?”

       After a few moments longer, all of us in a tranquil, stone room watching Ulfric, who was anywhere but in the room with us. Finally, Cassius leaned toward him. “Pa?”

        Ulfric looked up quickly, his eyes locking with Cassius’. “I read.”

        Cass jerked his head back. “Come again?”

         Ulfric shook his head slowly. “I read.” He looked toward Arngeir, who nodded for him to continue. “When I told you before that I was a good student, and I acquired all of my knowledge of the Way of the Voice through dedicated study, I wasn’t making excuses. That was how I learned. I read books, ancient books about the Thu’um and the Heroes of Old, and when I saw a word on a page, I could absorb its power and just know it.”

        Cassius scowled in disbelief. “So, you’re saying that they didn’t have to teach you?”

         Arngeir nodded. “We never had to teach him.”

         A guffaw of laughter ripped from Cassius’ chest, causing thunder to crack outside of High Hrothgar. “See? What did I tell you?” He slammed his open palms on the tabletop. “You’re Dragonborn!”

         “I had feared it would be you I saw today, Ulfric.” Arngeir said quietly. “I feared that you had finally absorbed a soul, and I feared that your powers would be too strong to control.”

        “What do you mean?” Galmar asked, his hand still on top of Ulfric’s unmoving arm.

        Arngeir sighed. “Much like the rest of the Greybeards, to simply open mouths could cause catastrophic damage. There were many Tongues who could never speak again because their abilities were too powerful. To add a dragon’s soul to that kind of ability is life changing.”

        “Never speak?” I asked quietly, trying to control the rumble of nerves in my chest.

         “Yes.” Arngeir answered. “But with training, you can harness the full potential of your abilities, Dragonborn. We can show you how to control your voice, and teach you words of power.”

        “I think we should start now.” Cass suggested. “I want to know how she learns the words.”

         “Of course.” Arngeir said, standing when the rest of the Greybeards did.

        I shook my head. “I don’t…”

      “Ma’s watching Cat.” Cass said to Lydia. “Do you think she’ll be fine for a few days?”

       “Days?” I asked quietly, suddenly worried. “Leif won’t understand--”

        “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Lydia answered, having not heard my quiet voice. “If need be, I can go back. You all stay as long as you need to.”

        “Yeah, of course.” Cass said, moving toward the doorway. “How long can you stay, Ulfric? Karl has to start training.”

        I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to--”

        “We can stay as long as we need to.” Ulfric explained, accompanied by a nod from Galmar.

         “Perfect.” Cass patted one of the oldest Greybeards on the back. “It’s good to be back in business, boys. I didn’t realized retirement was so boring until--”

         “Please, brother!” I shouted, sending the chairs around the table flying back against the wall with a smack. The surge of power made me unsteady on my feet, but Vilkas caught my elbow and kept me steady. With the attention of the room, I continued at a lower volume. “I don’t know that this is what I want to do, brother.”

          Cassius looked so hurt, it nearly broke my heart. “But, Karl...this is your destiny. Our destiny.”

         “I’m sorry, Cass.” I said, my gut wrenching at the sight of tears forming, just barely, in his eyes. “I just...I need to think about this. I need to think.”

         “You don’t have time to soul-search, Karalissa.” Cassius said firmly, blinking rapidly. “You’ll have no control over the Thu’um until you train.”

         “I can...I can control it.” I stammered.

        Cass laughed again, thunder accompanying him outside. “No you can’t, Karl. Did you not just send all of the furniture in this room flying in all directions?”

         “I can’t do it today, Cassius.” I said. “I’ll...I have to think first.”

         Cass glared, but Arngeir nodded. “We’ll be here when you’re ready, Dragonborn.”

         “Karl, you can’t be serious.” Cass mumbled quietly. He gestured to the room beyond, where he’d stood so many times before without me. “This is what we were supposed to do. Together.”

       “And we will.” I said. “We’ll do it together. Just not today.”

       It took him a moment, but finally, Cassius backed down. “Fine. Not today.”

  


         I picked up the plates from the table, stacking them in my hands and taking them to the washbasin under the stairs. I had no intention of washing them just yet, but I wanted to clear the table anyway. It was one of my favorite parts of dinner, to clear the table. Not because I was anal-retentive, but because I loved to listen to my husband and son’s banter.

        That night, though, Leif wasn’t in a very good mood. Not that he was usually the poster-child for happy and energetic, what with being ninety-eight percent Vilkas and two percent me, but he was unusually perturbed, for an unknown reason. He’d hardly touched his supper, simply pushing his roast around with his fork and tapping his foot against the leg of the supper table.

       Now, as Vilkas sat with his arms folded across the table, staring at our son in confusion and agitation as Leif continued to tap his foot against the leg of the table, Vilkas and I exchanged a look. It was a silent look, one that exchanged our curiosity about is behavior.

       “What’s the matter with you, son?” Vilkas asked, furrowing his brow as he looked at Leif from across the table.

       Leif was facing away from me, and he turned to see if I was listening before he answered. When he saw me sort of lingering in the doorway, he sighed. “Nothing’s wrong, Papa.”

        That just further piqued my curiosity, and I returned to the dining table to reclaim my seat beside my son. I ran my hand over his hair, his soft, dark curls covering one of his eyes, and I pushed it away to reveal his face. “Are you feeling alright?” I asked, keeping my voice low. Even still, as I spoke, I felt my chest rumble with unintentional Thu’um. I’d tried to talk as little as possible over the course of the day, and every time I opened my mouth, it still trembled a little.

         “Yes.” Leif mumbled, propping his head up on his fist. His jaw stretched as he released a loud yawn, and he blinked twice before he looked up at me. “I’m just tired.”

        “Did your uncle work you too hard?” Vilkas asked, an eyebrow raised. While we had traveled to High Hrothgar, Farkas and Aela had taken Leif back to Whiterun and looked after him. Usually when Farkas babysat, he either took Leif fishing, one of his favorite childhood activities that Vilkas had never enjoyed, or he asked Leif to help him with some tedious chore. Leif was too small to hold a weapon, and Vilkas had come very close to physically harming Farkas the last time he’d allowed Leif to play with a sword, so Farkas usually asked Leif to help him organize his books by title, or by author.

        Leif shrugged. “I don’t know. Uncle Farkas was kind of upset.”

       “About what?” Vilkas asked, shooting another look in my direction to measure my reaction.

       Leif looked up at me, then back at Vilkas. “I don’t know.”

       “Why don’t you go to sleep, baby?” I asked, keeping my voice as low as I could.

       My son nodded, hopping off of the bench and standing beside the table. Vilkas and I followed him toward the stairs, trailing behind him to his room just to the left of the staircase. His room had previously been the guest room, and it hadn’t changed much in transition. Leif was a boy of very simple tastes, preferring books over toys and draping a green blanket over his window. He said the sun was too bright, but I knew it was because he liked when the light shined through the blanket and turned his room green.

       He climbed up on his bed, sitting with his legs folded as he stared up at us. “Mama, I need to talk to Papa.”

       “Just Papa?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I knew he was your favorite.”

       Leif scowled. “That’s not what I meant.”

       I pretended to cry, soft fake-sobs that actually seemed to disturb my son as much as it entertained Vilkas. “It’s fine, son.” I explained, wiping fake tears from my eyes. “Spend time with your father, and I’ll just go to my room. Alone. Without a son who loves me more.” Vilkas exhaled sharply in laughter.

       “Mama.” Leif said, mildly irritated.

       I shrugged, smiling happily at his reaction before I kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, traitor.”

       Leif finally smiled a little. “Goodnight.”

       I strode from the room, shutting the door behind me, but lingering outside so I could listen to what they were saying. I listened as Vilkas moved across the room, followed by the creak of bedsprings and Vilkas’ grunt as he sat on the edge of Leif’s bed. Though he was still strong, Vilkas was getting older, and I typically made fun of the noises he made when he got in and out of bed. He sounded like an old man, after years of wielding a greatsword, and his back had finally began to ache when he got up and down from a seating position.

       “She wasn’t really crying, right?” Leif asked, and I struggled not to laugh. Leif’s way of forming words was a very unique blend of mine and Vilkas’ accents. He was very hard on his ‘r’s, but very relaxed with his ‘ing’s. It made for funny words, and I covered my mouth to muffle another giggle.

        Vilkas laughed, too. “No, she wasn’t really crying.” I grinned because I could picture the look on Vilkas’ face: exasperated with me, as he always was. “What do you want to talk about, son?”

         Leif was quiet for a moment. “I think Mama’s angry with me.”

         My smile faded as I heard the words, and though he couldn’t see, I shook my head. Vilkas must have, too. “What makes you think that?”

        “She hasn’t said much to me.” Leif said in a low voice, as if he were disappointed in himself.

         Vilkas sighed. “Your mother is being quiet on purpose.”

         “Mama’s never quiet.” Leif said. “She talks a lot. Too much, sometimes.”

         “Aye. But, your mama discovered that she can...she can do things with her voice. Things that are difficult to control right now.”

        “Like Uncle Cass?”

        “Aye, like Uncle Cass.”

        Leif was quiet for a moment. “Why did you cry so much, Papa? I never see you cry.”

        Vilkas was chillingly quiet. The only sound I heard for a long time was my own breathing. Eventually, he answered. “I thought Mama was hurt badly. I was...scared.”

        “You were scared?” Leif asked in shock, which brought a small smile to my face. “I thought you weren’t afraid of anything, Papa.”

        Vilkas laughed softly. “Everyone is afraid of something, son. Aunt Aela is afraid of skeever, and Uncle Farkas is afraid of spiders.” He laughed again. “She’ll never admit it, but your mother has the tiniest phobia of wolves, now. She has a bit of a history with them, apparently.”

        I rolled my eyes as Leif ignored his comment. “But what are you afraid of?” he asked.

        Vilkas sighed again, then laughed once. The sound was hardly audible, but still present. “I’m afraid of losing your mother.”

        My smile faded, my chest billowing with pain as I absorbed my husband’s quiet words. I felt tears form in my eyes, and I struggled to blink them away.

        “Mama’s not going anywhere, is she?” Leif asked, suddenly worried.

        “Of course not, son.” Vilkas responded. “Your mama would never leave us. She loves us too much. But that doesn’t mean I’m not scared.” He paused for a moment. “You’re too young to understand yet, Leif, but one day, you’ll meet someone who changes everything about you. You’ll meet someone who you didn’t know you needed your whole life, someone who makes you feel complete. The only thing you’ll ever be afraid of is losing that person, because you wouldn’t be you without them.”

         “And that’s why you’re afraid of losing Mama?”

          “Aye.”

          Leif was quiet for a moment. “What happens if we do lose her, Papa? How do we survive?”

           Tears did fall, then, and I allowed them to roll down my cheeks as I listened to my son's words. 

           Vilkas fell silent, then he sighed. “We keep going. Mama would want us to keep going.” I heard him adjust his position. “But nobody is going anywhere, son. Not for a long time. And nobody is angry with you.”

          “Promise?” my son asked, his voice sounding more relieved than worried.

          “Promise.” Vilkas assured.

          It was then that I left the hall, striding down the stairs and stepping out the front door. It was crisp, the evening air, and I folded my arms across my chest to provide a little warmth.

          I lowered myself to sit on the step, looking up at the starless sky and wondering how the hell my life turned out the way it had. It was easy to understand certain things, of course. I was in this situation because I stood in the face of a dragon; because I was in Windhelm; because Lydia was the Jarl; because they’d fought in the Civil War; because my brother met Ulfric in Helgen; because we’d been seperated when we left home; because Viarmo tore our family apart; because my brother met Ulfric in Helgen; because we’d been separated when we left Solitude; because Viarmo tore our family apart; because Ma was lonely when Ulfric left; because Ma and Ulfric met in the first place.

            But this had never been the life I wanted. I wanted a boring life with Vilkas and Leif, and a prosperous future for my Companions. Dragons had never been part of the plan, and I didn't know that I wanted them to be.

          The door opened behind me, and Vilkas sat beside me after he shut the door, grunting as he lowered himself into a seated position. He handed me one of his thick sweaters. “Thought you might want this.”

          I smiled because he knew me so well, and I slipped my arms through the sleeves. He wrapped his arm around my waist, drawing me closer to him and allowing me to rest my head against his shoulder.

          “A night without stars.” he mumbled. “Kodlak used to say that a night without stars meant a clear path for your journeys.” He ran his hand over my long hair. “You know what you want to do, Kara. You just have to allow yourself to do it.”

         “I can't leave the two of you.” I whispered. “You two are the only people I care about in this world.”

           Vilkas laughed softly. “Come on, Kara. You know as well as I do that that isn't the truth. Your brother is important, too.”

         I sighed. “I know.”

         He placed a soft kiss against my forehead. “You know what you need to do.”

         I nodded, shutting my eyes and savoring that moment as Vilkas held me in the crisp night air of Whiterun. “I know.”


	4. Silent Footsteps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training commences at High Hrothgar, but Ulfric is kind of distracted. 
> 
> POV: Ulfric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waddup, peeps.
> 
> Sorry I haven't updated in 84 years, but frickin' thank you guys for pushing this fic close to one hundred hits with only three chapters! Agh, you guys make my heart so happy.
> 
> This is kind of a dud chapter. I wanted the Paarthurnax chapter to be in Cassius' perspective, so I had to fill Ulfric's spot with something. The good stuff is coming up in the next few chapters. 
> 
> Also, sorry for the random format change. I had to stop using Microsoft Word.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me ily

I smiled at the sight of my son’s hand on my daughter’s shoulder. It was a warming thought, to know that he possessed the will and desire to look after her. He always had, but it was more evident now than ever.

In the years that had passed since I’d told them that I was their father, it became more and more clear to me that Cassius cared more about Karalissa than he cared about himself. There had been many times where he’d stayed up late, long after the children had gone to sleep at family gatherings, and told these stories about things he’d done and places he’d gone. Cassius was a story-teller; he loved the thrill of conflict and the decline of falling action, climactic high points and twist endings. He loved to tell stories, and he’d tell them to whoever was listening.

Of course, I had always assumed that it was because he loved being the center of attention. When I knew him as a young boy, not even seven years old, he would do anything to earn the attention of an entire room, whether it be crying or breaking something or talking incessantly. Cassius had always thrived off of the admiration others had for him, and it was no surprise that he loved to talk and have everyone within earshot hang on his every word.

It became apparent to me, though, that he didn’t actually tell the stories for the attention. It was a late evening in Northshore Castle, where everyone had gathered to celebrate New Life Day two years ago, and Cassius had propped himself up in my throne and was telling a story about a cave he and Lydia had discovered in their glory days as Thane and housecarl. He was so involved in the story, as everyone else in the room was, but I realized halfway through that he wasn’t really telling the story to everyone in the room. Instead, he was telling the story to Karalissa.

To hear him tell, Cassius had always told her stories: when she was young to help her fall asleep, when there was something obviously bringing her mood down, or when she simply asked him to. It was how they’d passed the time in Solitude, and he was always able to come up with something to tell her. Karalissa loved books and tall tales and lore, but Cassius never had. He’d only ever liked telling stories to his sister.

So now, as the three of us stood before the Greybeards, and we all listened to Cassius tell the story of his first lesson, I watched my daughters face. She always smiled a little when Cass made a face, or she asked him to further explain the parts that interested her, or she giggled when he made sound effects. He was really just talking to her with occasional glances at the rest of us, and I didn’t mind at all.

“And that is how lessons work.” Cassius concluded after a long and detailed explanation. He patted Borri on the back. “I would have let the Greybeards take the floor, but talking isn’t much of a strong suit for them.”

Borri smiled, a soft shake of his head the only response he could fathom. Arngeir laughed quietly. “It has always been in your nature to talk, Dragonborn, but never in ours.”

“And that’s why you never invited me to join you all up here, right?” Cassius asked with a smirk. “It wasn’t because you don’t like me or anything.”

Karalissa raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure it was a little of both, brother.” Einarth exhaled sharply, expressing that he was humored by that. She gave him a wink.

Cassius raised his arms in mock defense. “Watch it, Karl. I could roast you alive, you know.”

“I believe she could do much more damage to you, Dragonborn.” Arngeir said to Cassius with a small smile. “Her voice is much more powerful than yours at present. Perhaps in the future, too.” Cassius snarled in irritation, but Arngeir continued. “If you’ll all follow me to the courtyard, I believe we can begin our training.”

The three of us trailed behind him toward the back door, and I suddenly wished that I’d allowed Galmar to come with me. We’d agreed to come just the three of us, and I knew in my heart that Galmar had ignored my request and was somewhere outside of High Hrothgar waiting for me, but it was awkward to be alone in a world I was so familiar with. I’d grown up with the Greybeards. I’d spent my childhood with these four old men, and yet, I could find nothing to say to them.

The last time we’d been here, Galmar and I had been a unit. I had someone to exchange glances with, to whisper quietly to, to laugh with when something uncomfortable was said. Now, it was Cassius and Karalissa, and just me. I knew they didn’t intend for it to happen that way, but it was how the chips had fallen, and I had no choice but to follow behind and wait for instruction.

As we stepped out into the cold of the outside world, we trudged through the snow toward the center of the courtyard. There, the Greybeards lined up in a semicircle facing us. I noticed Karalissa shiver in the cold, and I removed my top coat and handed it to her. She offered me a soft thank you before she slipped her arms through the sleeves.

Arngeir took a small step forward. “Dovahkiin.” he said, directing his words toward Karalissa. “There are many basic shouts that the Dragonborn and Ulfric already know, but still so much you have to learn.” He outspread his arms, gesturing to the entirety of the courtyard. “Here, we commune with the voice of the sky, and strive to achieve balance between our inner and outer selves.”

Karalissa nodded. “I’m ready to learn.”

“You have shown that you are Dragonborn. You have the inborn gift, which provides the ability to send tables and chairs of stone away from you with great force. But do you have the discipline and temperament to follow the path laid out for you?  _ That _ remains to be seen.” Arngeir folded his arms across his chest. “Without training, you have already taken the first steps toward projecting your voice into a Thu’um.”

“A shout.” Cassius interjected.

“Now, let’s see if you’re willing and able to learn.” Arngeir nodded to her, and she nodded back. “When you Shout, you speak in the language of dragons. Thus, your Dragon Blood gives you an inborn ability to learn Words of Power. All Shouts are made up of three Words of Power. As you master each word, your Shouts will become more powerful.”

“Master words?” Karalissa asked, her brow furrowed slightly.

Arngeir smiled. “I will try not to confuse you. Let us begin with the basics.” With a nod, Karalissa followed him to the center of the room. He stood before her, stretching his hand downward, toward the ground. We waved his hand a bit, and the markings that formed a single word in dovahzul. His eyes returned to Karalissa’s, who watched with curiosity. “Now, can you tell me what this says?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Master Arngeir, but I haven’t learned the language.”

Arngeir smiled again, soft and patient, as always. “Your mind already has the ability to read the language. Unlike the language of humans, dragons do not have to learn to speak. They simply...do.” He gestured toward the ground once more. “Just read. Open your mind, and read.”

Karalissa nodded hesitantly, then returned her gaze to the ground. It was a words I already knew, and so I watched her face, and then face of her brother. Cassius, too, watched intently. Karalissa squinted a little, as if she were trying to see it more clearly and a fog had obstructed her view.

Finally, she looked up at the Greybeards. “Fus.”

She said it softly, to answer Arngeir’s question, but the power of her voice propelled the word toward them. Blue ripples radiated through the air and made contact with their chests, causing them to stagger backwards. Borri, the oldest and most frail of the Greybeards, nearly fell, but I outstretched my arm to grip his arm and steady him.

When Borri was steady, he glanced back at the group. Arngeir had gone on to dismiss Karalissa’s apologies, then gift her with his knowledge of the word to train her with the shout. Borri looked back at me, a small smile on his face as he nodded toward the hall to the left of us. Confused, I followed behind him as he strayed away from the group. 

Borri moved quietly through the halls of High Hrothgar, his steps silent like the rest of him. I had lived here for so long, but something about the halls had changed. They seemed brighter, more open, and without the darkness that had shadowed it, I couldn’t recognize the hall we were in.

“Where are we going?” I asked quietly. Borri simply glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding again for me to follow. Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. One of the few reasons I’d left the Greybeards, aside from the war, was because I couldn’t bear the silence anymore. I knew they always listened when I spoke, but they never shared any of their thoughts. I hadn’t understood the point of having opinions and ideas and words to say, and yet never saying them. It had bothered me enough to drive me away, and ironically, it was what had stricken me silent now that I’d returned.

Finally, Borri turned a corner I recognized, into a hall I knew very well. It was a vacant hall, lined with benches and mats to pray on, but at the very end of the small section of High Hrothgar, there was a little cushioned mat. My chest surged, knowing what Borri was bringing me to.

When we reached the end of the hall, Borri stopped and allowed me to step slowly into what had been my ‘bedroom’ of sorts when I’d lived here. Nothing had changed since the moment I left; my books stacked in the corner, a pair of my old shoes on the ground, even the bedroll hadn’t been moved or made to look a bit less askew. I kneeled before a small chest in the corner, lifting the latch to reveal more of the things I’d left behind. There were letters from my father, notes from lessons Arngeir had given, mindless sketches on the corners of weathered sheets of paper.

I stood, turning toward Borri. I knew there was confusion in the way I looked at him, but I didn’t try to conceal it. “Nothing was ever moved.” I said, and he nodded once. “Why?”

Borri smiled, a genuine smile, and he ran his fingertips across the stone wall. Then, he placed his hand over my chest. He didn’t speak, but when I met his gaze, he mouthed the word ‘home’. 

“You waited for me to come back.” I stated, and he nodded again. Emotion welled in my chest, and I struggled to swallow it down. “You didn’t have to. The way I left wasn’t kind.”

Borri laughed soundlessly, shaking his head. His smile never faltered as he pivoted on his heel, turning toward the window beside him. ‘Year’, he mouthed, a content look on his face. He glanced at me, just for a moment. ‘Worth it.’

I felt my face burning, but Borri’s smile finally fell as he peered out of the window. He stepped to the side so I, too, could look as a gray dragon soared past the window over the training yard, its roar echoing through the surrounding skies.

My brow furrowed, and I looked down at Borri. “Is that... Paarthurnax?” 

Borri nodded, then placed his hand on my arm to guide me back to the main room.


	5. Caught Off Guard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassius faints after Paarthurnax relays some shocking news
> 
> POV: Cassius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI EVERYONE!
> 
> Wow-e-wow! I'm literally so sorry I haven't posted in five months, almost to the date. Truth be told, I've had a lot going on both at work and in my personal life. Nothing bad, though. Everything incredible. I just rarely had a free moment to sit down and write, and when I actually have, I've been relatively uninspired. I hate to say I've been to happy to write, but that's kind of the truth. In addition, I've had no idea what to write. I really wanted this story to work, but I literally couldn't find anything to put on the page.
> 
> But tonight!! Tonight, for whatever reason, I snapped and after months of writer's block, I heckin wrote. So here's some fic (that's basically unedited because I was too excited to wait to post any longer. I'll edit it later). I'll try to update more regularly.
> 
> As always, I want to THANK ALL OF YOU for being patient and committed to reading my work. Though I stopped updating, you all never stopped reading. Thank you for pushing A Grand Finale and Walk With the Shadows past 200 hits, Liberation of Skyrim to almost 400, Blood's Honor and Whispers in the Dark past 500, and Before the Storm to almost 700(!!!!!!!) hits!!! I'm literally so overcome with gratitude to all of you for reading and leaving comments and kudos on my work. It's liberating and exciting and so much fun to interact with all of you through written word.
> 
> I also want to give a special shout out to devitameatball, who wrote an incredible spin-off for my Cicero and his time away from Arabella in Before the Storm. She writes Skyrim fanfiction as well, indulging in the delightful darkness of the Dark Brotherhood and dedicating hours to lore research to make her work as authentic as possible. If you haven't read her stories, you should. I also want to show ScribeoftheKingofKnights some love for brightening my day by creating little Cassius and Karalissa avatars and for sending me Star Wars fanfic via instagram. You're a pleasure to know and to interact with through my writing! I'm glad to have met you!
> 
> Okay, guys. I'll stop rambling and let you read. I'll update again soon, I promise.

     I was lost in a vast expanse of nowhere. I was drowning in an airless world, and I couldn’t draw breath to call for help. The world was a warm brown, an aesthetic bronze that engulfed me. The bronze filled my chest as I struggled to breathe, stirring the souls in my chest that had never really settled. 

     And I was somewhere familiar, though I couldn’t place where. I could smell smoke, accompanied by the scent of molten copper armor and melting iron helmets. I could hear the guards I’d fought alongside screaming in agony, and I pictured them rolling in the grass outside the gates of Whiterun to extinguish the flames that had consumed them. I felt my own chest plate melting, the metal like poison against my bare flesh beneath. The liquid fire seared my chest, but I couldn’t draw breath to scream. Karl had always told me I should wear a shirt under my armor, if not to keep myself somewhat clean to protect the wounds I’d earned on my chest from gathering dirt and soot. 

     She was in the woods somewhere, my sister. I couldn’t find her. Not in the fields of Riften, not in the city, not in the nearby towns. She was gone, and now I was gone, and she’d never know how sorry I was. 

     I needed to find her, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I was there, outside of the Western Watchtower, and the dragon had been slain by my sword and the light from its chest flowed into mine. I willed my mouth to moved, to call for help, but they thought I was gone, and they dragged my body across the singed grass and tossed me into the pile of dead men.

_      “Cass, can you hear me?” _

     It was my sister’s voice, coming from down the hall of Proudspire Manor. I’d skipped out on my classes that morning, and I anticipated she would give me an earful for it. 

     The door to our bedroom swung open, and my sister threw her bookbag on the ground as she entered. She stalked to her bed, removing her uniform coat along the way and throwing it into her pile of laundry in the corner. She flopped onto her bed, across the room from mine, and huffed loudly. I didn’t look up from my sword, too determined not to make eye contact with her. 

     Several minutes passed before she made any noise at all, but when she finally spoke, she didn’t chastise me for not going to class that morning, as I’d promised. Instead, in a quiet voice, she mumbled “We should run away.”

     That startled me, and though I didn’t look up, I furrowed my brow. I continued to polish my rusted blade, left behind by my father, as I responded. “What are you talking about, kid?”

     I heard her sit up in bed, the small heels of her uniform shoes clicking against our stone floor. “We should just run away.” she repeated, her voice low and hollow. “I don’t…”

     The way her voice trailed off triggered some brotherly reflex within me, and I fought not to look up at her. I knew what I’d see, and I couldn’t bring myself to let my eyes rest on something I should have stopped from happening. I swallowed the lump of guilt in my throat, cleared my voice before I spoke so it wouldn’t tremble. “You don’t what, Karl?”

     She was quiet for what felt like decades, but realistically was just a few prolonged moments. Finally, her voice penetrated the silence, her whisper filling our room with vacant walls. “I don’t think I can stay here much longer, Cassius.”

     I finally looked up at her, unable to keep my gaze on the rusty blade. She sat sort of slouched over her knees, her eyes glued to the ground. When she lifted her eyes, I saw that she’d applied a heavy amount of rouge to her face. I felt the corner of my mouth tug, a smirk forming as I sought to make fun of her for wearing makeup, but it faded quickly as I realized the rouge was to attempt to cover the bruises on her face.

     I’d been able to ignore them for a long time, when they only showed up on her shoulders or her chest. I forced myself to believe the little lies she told to cover them up, to push the thoughts of what I assumed was happening to the back of my mind. It wasn’t because I didn’t care, but instead because I cared too much. If I asked her if what I thought was happening  _ was _ actually happening, I’d break down in tears, and I couldn’t do that in front of her. I couldn’t show her that I was weak, because I was supposed to be her strong older brother: a force to be reckoned with when put up against the rest of the world. I didn’t want her to know that the thought of Viarmo hitting her didn’t make me angry. I didn’t want her to know that instead, it made me want to drop to my knees before her and beg for her forgiveness. 

     But I couldn’t ignore it any longer, not when her face looked the way it did. When I demanded to know what had happened to her at dinner the night before, she’d come up with some bullshit excuse about tripping and hitting her face on the doorknob. Our mother bought into it, Viarmo seemed to orchestrate it, but a doorknob wouldn’t bust her lip. A doorknob wouldn’t leave a blossoming purple bruised across half of her face. A doorknob wouldn’t leave long, finger-shaped bruises on the side of her neck.

     I grit my teeth as I looked at her face, the pain in her eyes causing tears to swell in mine. “Do...do you want me t-to…” I couldn’t finished the question because I wasn’t sure what to ask. Anger flared in my chest as I pictured him hurting her, as I often did, so I clenched and unclenched my fists to push the image away.

_      “Cass.” _

     My skin felt cold, blisteringly cold, but I was warm. My jaw was set, my leg bouncing impatiently. I held my sister, only a year old and kind of ugly because babies look like little lima beans. My mother was across the room, sitting in the chair in the farthest corner of the Winking Skeever by herself, ignoring us completely and tracing the rim of her mug with her index finger.

     I was mad. I was sad. I was confused.

     It had been a month since I’d seen Pa, and I didn’t know why he hadn’t come back. My mother had received a letter, with a bright red seal on the front of the envelope, but I wasn’t allowed to see it. Instead, I had to sit with Karalissa, and all she did was stare at me with creepy baby eyes.

     “Are you listening, Cass?” Corpulus asked, stealing a glance at my mother before smiling at me. He tapped the page of the book he read from. “This is the best part.” I nodded, and so he continued. “The mighty dragonslayer sheathed his sword, the scaly beast breathing its final breath on the ground before him. Behind the man, the city cheered. The world was saved.” Corpulus shut the book, the smile still glued to his face. “What did you think, Cass?”

     “I hated it.” I said.

     He seemed confused. “But, why? I thought you’d love a story about a hero who saved the town.”

     I huffed. “Books are stupid. And dragons aren’t real.”

_      “Cassius!” _

 

     My eyes shot open, and I blinked a few times to reorient my sight. My sister’s face hovered over mine, her expression stuck somewhere between concern and confusion. I shook my head slightly. “What?”

     “Talos above, brother.” Karalissa muttered. “Are you alright?”

     “The hell are you talking about?” I growled, propping myself up on my elbow. The ground beneath me was covered in snow, whipping around us as the wind blew wildly. I looked around, trying to remember where I was.

     Karalissa tugged my arm, trying to help me stand. “You...fainted, Cass.”

     I scoffed. “No I didn’t.”

     “You did.” Ulfric said, and I whipped my head in the direction of his voice. He stood sort of uncomfortably, his eyes locked on something beyond me.

     When I followed his gaze, I remembered. My eyes fell upon the old, gray dragon that perched himself above the word wall. I jerked myself to my feet and, plagued by sudden vertigo, gripped Karalissa’s shoulder for support. Paarthurnax watched me curiously, his expression never transitioning from utter seriousness. 

     “Alduin is not dead.” I repeated, recalling everything that was said before I hit the ground. “Alduin is not fucking dead.”

     “Alduin is very much alive.” Paarthurnax bellowed, his voice deep and smooth, his words unfaltering.

     “No.” I nearly growled, shaking my head and staggering forward a pace. “I killed Alduin. I slayed him in Sovngarde with the ancient Nordic heroes.”

     Paarthurnax nodded slightly, the momentum from the movement of his large head causing more snow to whip around him. “It would seem that your story is not oblaan-at it’s end.”

     Karalissa spoke from beside me. “So you commanded the dragon, the one whose soul I absorbed? You commanded him to sacrifice himself so I could learn I have dragon blood. Dovah blood.” When Paarthurnax nodded, she continued. “But I don’t understand. If Cassius slayed the dragon, how can he still be alive? And if he is, what does that have to do with me and Ulfric?”

     Before Paarthurnax could answer, I laughed cynically. “I didn’t absorb his soul.”

     “You won a mighty victory.” Paarthurnax said. “Sahrot krongrah-one that will echo through all the ages of this world for those who have eyes to see. Savor that triumph, Dovahkiin.”

     “But what’s there to savor if it was for nothing?” I asked with a laugh, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands.

     Paarthurnax released a heavy sigh. “Dovah are not like mortal creatures, and Alduin is unique, even among dragonkind. As his soul remains with him, he is stin-free to roam the plains of time.”

     “What do we have to do?” Karalissa asked. “I don’t understand why Cassius couldn’t defeat Alduin alone.”

     “When ancient mortals gathered to defeat Alduin before, it took more than one.” Paarthurnax explained. “To banish Alduin, to condemn him to the time wound, it took three heroes. Not one. Through fire and time, the terror has lived.”

     I nodded slowly. “It was always supposed to be all of us in Sovngarde. It takes more than just me to truly defeat Alduin.”

     “Yes, Dovahkiin.” he confirmed, the wind blowing across the top of the mountain finally slowing to a halt. “You now have the answers. The question that remains is mulaag-do you have the strength to defeat Alduin once more?”

     I set my jaw, gazing up at the sky above me. The aurora spattered across the atmosphere in shades of violet and periwinkle that gave a magnificent highlight to dimming stars. Thu’um rumbled in my chest, anger swelling inside of me. I breathed deeply, sifting through the souls that I  _ had _ absorbed to find my voice, buried deep within me.

     Sky above. Voice within.

     And then, I laughed. I shook my head and laughed quietly as my sister placed her hand against my burly shoulder. I looked down at her, greeted by her hopeful eyes and knowing that she would stand behind whatever I chose to do. I then looked to Ulfric, standing sort of off on his own and watching me curiously. He’d been relatively quiet this entire time, amazed more than Karl and I to stand before the wise, old dragon. Maybe because he hadn’t been as close to dragons as we had before that very moment, or maybe because he was amazed that Paarthurnax had always been more than a legend he read about in books. Maybe because  _ we _ had always been more than a legend read about in books.

     Finally, I nodded to Paarthurnax. It would take a lot of training, a lot of patience, a lot of power. But with Karalissa and Ulfric, I was confident that I did have the strength to defeat Alduin again. Together, once and for all. 


	6. Watch the Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karalissa has another dream--one that might be better left unheard by anyone else. Later, Cassius interrupts supper.
> 
> POV: Karalissa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW-E-WOW
> 
> So, like...sorry for not posting an update for like two months. I've been busy with life and I've been struggling with this fic, honestly. I've been writing it backwards, so I have the ending and the last three chapters written, and I've been struggling to work out the middle.
> 
> But yeah! Thanks for bopping my works up in hits, especially Trouble in Skyrim, which has 60ish more hits than the last time I checked! You guys rock and thank you for being so patient with me. Here's an angsty Karalissa chapter! (that I haven't edited tbh so don't judge)

Suffocating.

It what the only thing I could think about as I approached the city, from which smoke billowed like a sheet of black silk, filling the open air surrounding the gates. The crackling of fire could be heard against the silence that emanated, along with my heart pounding against my ribcage, but they were whispers compared to the scream of a voice in my head that said “He’s suffocating.”

I stayed low to the ground to remain hidden by the bushes as I approached what was left of the city. My throat had swollen shut, but my chest seized rhythmically as my lungs produced wheezing coughs. The smoke had become too thick for me to see the path through, let alone breathe in, so I backed away from the path-side and dipped back into the woods surrounding the city.

I heaved, struggling to intake clean air and hack out the silk in my lungs. My eyes burned, and I blinked profusely in an attempt to moisten them again. I continued to move, unable to stop for even a moment, following the wall of the city to an entrance that wasn’t oozing thick smoke.

It was unsettlingly quiet. Too quiet for midday on the seventeenth of Last Seed. There were no sounds of city-life, no mumble of words or clearing of throats, no children playing could be heard from the outskirts of the territory. There was no sound of birds chirping in trees, no wind rustling leaves. Through the breezeless air, there was a scent so rancid that I involuntarily covered both my mouth and nose. I felt myself gag at the smell, which only started another fit of coughs.

The smell became stronger as I approached a gap in the protective wall, clearly not protective enough to keep whatever created it out. I stepped over the rubble and entered the city, keeping a close eye on the rocks I stepped over to ensure I kept my balance. I’d always been rather clumsy, and the last thing I wanted was to slip and break my arm while I tried to walk a few steps.

It wasn’t until I was on solid ground that I looked up, and when I did, I immediately looked away. I felt my breath leave my body, as if I’d been punched in the stomach by both question and answer. Slowly, I leveled my eyes with the disaster before me.

Helgen was destroyed.

In flames.

In ashes.

The smell in my nostrils was burning flesh, flaking off of the bone and lifting up into flowing air, creating a thick smoke, like a sheet of black silk, and I’d breathed it in moments before. I’d breathed burnt flesh into my body.

I vomited.

I wiped my mouth, lifting my eyes again to meet hundreds of corpses, both scattered along the streets of Helgen and heaped into inhumane piles. The fire of the city, whose soft crackle was the only sound for miles, had charred them to an unrecognizable black. A few moved, barely, in their last moments of soundless death. Some bodies were small. Children.

I took a step back. I vomited again.

I cried.

I sobbed.

I felt my knees hit the ground and I allowed a scream to escape my lungs. I doubled over, hyperventilating as I realized that Cassius was scattered along the streets and heaped into piles. He was charred to an unrecognizable black. He was flaking away and drifting in the black silk.

I was unthinking, but I thought too much. I was unknowing, but I already knew the answer. I stood, struggling to stifle my cries and gain some control as I staggered forward to approach a pile of bodies. The smell became stronger, the burning flesh, and I covered my nose with my ratty tunic.

With my other hand, I slowly turned the body on top over to allow it to face upward. The face was nothing more than a bone structure, the jaw narrow and the nose small. Not Cassius. Allowing my tunic to fall from my face, I used both hands to push that body off of the pile and crumble as it cracked against the ground. The next had a broad jawline, a crooked nose and a long, thick neck. The chest, or lack thereof, was broad and manly, so I ran my bare hands over the face in an effort to expose some Cassius features. I hoped that beneath the soot, there would be thick eyebrows, a small scar on the chin, a light spatter of freckles almost identical to mine.

But when I brushed my fingers across the face, the nose crumbled in my hand. The skin stuck to mine as my hand touched what was left of bone and wiped away what was left of skin.

I wouldn’t find my brother in the rubble. No matter how many bodies I searched, he was gone. Another scream escaped my lungs as I stumbled back, scrubbing my hands against the side of my tunic. I felt myself hit the ground again, my sobs now uncontrollable as a dragon flew overhead. I looked up, watching its wings flap loudly and rustle the soot around me.

A faint weeping from within the city caught my attention, and slowly, I stood and moved toward it. I stepped over bodies, toward the sound of a man crying somewhere nearby, and I looked up at the sky, which had morphed from typical blue to a deep purple, a beautiful painting of teals and onyxes that was speckled with stars. I was somewhere that wasn’t Skyrim, anymore. Somewhere that wasn’t solid. Wasn’t Nirn.

I stopped when I saw the man, hunched over a charred body on the ground. His dark hair covered his face, and his body shook as he sobbed, the cries becoming louder as I got closer. I came to a stop, watching as he ran his fingers over the face of the body he held, and for him, the soot wiped away. Below the charred skin was a woman’s face, eyes closed and skin pale. Her face was nearly overwhelmed by bushy eyebrows, her cheeks dusted with freckles in the same shade of reddish-blonde as her hair.

It was me. I was the body, and when he looked up at the sky, the man was Vilkas. He screamed my name, the two-syllable shortening of Karalissa that he’d always called me by. His eyes, the same vibrant blue they’d always been, looked not at me, but through me in utter agony. He ran his hands over my charred hair, and I listened as he pleaded for a different fate than the one he’d been dealt.

Thunder cracked, the echo of a dragon’s cry radiating through what was left of Helgen, the sound of screams all around me. No sound louder than the words from Vilkas’ mouth as he screamed.

_“Gods, please. Take me, too.”_

I shot upright in bed, gasping for breath as my eyes adjusted to the room around me. I ran my hand over my sweaty face, looking around frantically for Vilkas for a stupid moment, as if he wouldn’t be found in bed beside me.

He seemed uncomfortable in slumber, his brow furrowed aggressively as it usually was in consciousness. I ran my knuckles across his forehead, then my fingertips down his stubbly cheek, and his face relaxed. A soft smile formed on his face, a rarity to everyone but me, and he mumbled a soft “I love you.” in his sleep. I laughed softly just before tears formed in my eyes, a soft cry escaping my chest.

I got out of bed, covering myself quickly in one of Vilkas’ large sweaters that had been tossed on the floor after he’d worn it. I tiptoed out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind me. Walking quietly down the hall, I cracked Leif’s door open to look in on him and make sure he was snuggled into his sheets and snoring almost as loudly as his father before slinking down the stairs.

In the kitchen, I splashed cold water on my face and wiped my face on what was probably a dirty towel, resting on the table. I sat on the bench, feeling my eyes glaze over as I replayed my dream again and again in my head.

I hadn’t thought about Helgen in a long time. Years, maybe. It used to be something that I thought about near constantly, but I’d never dreamed about it. I’d never re-imagined it so vividly that I could smell the things I’d smelled eight years ago. In fact, I’d tried to push that thought as far away from my mind as I could get it. I never wanted to go back to Helgen again. I never wanted to feel the way I felt when I thought I’d lost my brother.

My brother often talked about Helgen, and he never spoke about it like it was a bad experience for him. Obviously, he had some justified bitterness toward the Empire and a fuel predisposition to be involved in a revolution. It was simply fate that he was also born of dragon blood and had the ability to save the world as we knew it. He came face to face with a dragon and he sought to destroy every dragon that had ever lived, not just the one that tried to kill him.

But me? I never had any reason to do anything. I was never motivated to defend the greater good, I’d never had an itch to fight. I’d done what I needed to do to protect the people I loved, and that was enough for me. I’d do anything for my brother, and I wanted to understand the part of myself that was dragon. But at what cost? At what loss?

I stood from the bench, stalking toward the window in the living room. I looked out at the night sky, folding my arms across my chest when I shivered slightly in the crisp air of my home. Releasing a long sigh, I shut my eyes for a second.

I was going to die in Sovngarde. At that moment, I just knew. My fate, which according to Cassius had always been to go to Sovngarde to defeat Alduin, would be my undoing after all this time. I wished, then, that I’d never spoken to Paarthurnax, that I’d never ventured to the Throat of the World to train with the Greybeards, that I’d never tried to talk to that dragon. I could have lived the rest of my days with Vilkas, with Leif, with Farkas and my Companions. But instead, I’d been doomed to die by my brother’s side, where I’d always imagined myself dying, but never this soon. I didn’t want to go to Sovngarde anymore, not if it meant my death would follow shortly after, but I knew that I had no choice. The gods had already written my fate, and I had no choice but to follow my own path.

A creak from the staircase startled me, but I didn’t react when Vilkas’ heavy feet shuffled across the floor toward me. Within moments, his arm was around my torso, pulling me back into his bare chest. I rested my head against his shoulder, allowing my eyes to shut again.

“Awfully far from bed, pup.” he said quietly, his chest rumbling against my back as he spoke.

I opened my eyes to look at him for a moment, offering a small smile before looking out of the window again. “The stars were calling, Villy.” I said. “I had to answer.”

Vilkas tilted my head back toward him, looking down at my face in confusion. He wiped tears that I’d been unaware of from my cheek with his thumb. I smiled half-heartedly, but he just frowned.

“What’s the matter, Kara?” he asked.

I sighed, shaking my head slightly. There were a thousand things to tell him, a thousand things to cry about, a thousand things I hadn’t yet discovered. But all of them would worry him, and make him reluctant to see me off to Sovngarde. I wanted him to feel okay for now, because he wouldn’t soon.

So instead of telling him a thousand things, I settled for “Nothing.”

  
  
  


 

I poked at my supper, relatively un-hungry as I watched the Companions interacting over a meal. Suppertime in Jorrvaskr had always been a lively activity, full of laughter and boastful conversation about the day’s labors. I spent a lot of time listening to my Companions talk to each other, relishing the big family I’d always wanted.

But as time passed, six years since I first set foot in Jorrvaskr, I grew numb to my surroundings. I was content, happy to miss a moment of conversation because this was where I would spend the rest of my life. I would lead the Companions in Kodlak Whitemane’s image until I died, then transcend to train with him in Sovngarde, like all of the other Harbingers before me, including Ysgramor.

More recently, though, since I discovered everything I knew about my fate was a misunderstanding, I paid close attention to everything that was said within the walls of Jorrvaskr. I watch the recruits eat and talk and I discovered things about them I’d never realized. Torvar was right-handed, but he used his left hand to eat with a fork. Ria almost never contributed to conversation at dinner, mostly nodding her head and offering muffled “mm-hmms” when Athis, the most talkative, rambled on about the giant he and Thorald had rid the outskirts of the city of that day. And Codus, my sweet, young recruit who actually wasn’t very young anymore, watched over it all. The only Imperial member of the Circle ate about an hour before everyone else, he said because he was used to eating early, but I knew it was because he wanted to be free to handle any situation that may arise while the Companions ate their meals. He kept eyes almost protectively over the entire room, as if looking away for even one moment would cause someone to choke on their venison and die right in front of him. 

And as we had for years, the rest of the Circle sat off on our own, at our shabby little table in the corner of the room. We’d changed nothing over the years here, feeling that any slight redecoration would dishonor the Companions that sat before us. To relocate the banners would mean Vignar’s work thirty-one years ago would have gone to waste. To fix the crack in the wall by the back door, where a twenty year old Kodlak had tripped and put an axe through the foundation, would mean we wouldn’t have that story to tell. To replace the table we sat at, which had a small wooden extension near the base, a half-hearted modification made by Skjor to prop his feet up on at meals, would mean that we had put him to rest, and we never wanted to. 

Things remained the way they were for a reason in Jorrvaskr, and it pained my heart to know that soon, I wouldn’t be a part of the picture. I was going to die. I could feel it, and I didn’t know what to do.

I hadn’t shared my dream with anyone, and I honestly didn’t plan to yet. I wasn’t sure who to tell or when to say it, and it was becoming more and more difficult to be alone with the thoughts of my own impending doom. I felt tears spring to my eyes as I imagined trying to explain the situation to Leif, especially after overhearing him and Vilkas talking about the possibility of my absence. 

He scampered around the Companions long, U-shaped table now, trying to convince Thorald to show him how to hold a sword. The large Nord promised that he would teach him after dinner, stealing glances in Vilkas’ and my direction to make sure we weren’t overhearing. Leif usually didn’t sit at the Circle’s table, as we had offered many times. My son wanted to be a Companion, not a child,  and every night at dinner, he sat with the recruits instead of his parents. 

“Lissa?” Farkas’ voice rumbled from beside me, drawing my attention back to the table.

I blinked, shaking my head just a little as I mustered up a fake smile. “Yes?”

Farkas looked around the table, acknowledging Vilkas’ nose in a book and attention elsewhere, and Aela stuffing venison into her mouth as if she were some sort of ravenous wolf. Both completely distracted, Farkas nodded to my plate before me, which I hadn’t eaten anything off of. He furrowed his brow, silently asking why I hadn’t eaten. 

I knew he saw the tears in my eyes, and I continued to blink them away. I smiled bigger, shaking my head slightly to tell him that I wasn’t hungry. There was an aching pain in my chest that I couldn’t identify, as if something within me was restlessly banging against the walls of my ribcage. I couldn’t eat, even if I wanted to, and that message seemed to carry to Farkas. 

He glanced at the two preoccupied again, then pulled a sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal from the table behind him. He spent a few moments, nearly a minute and a half, scrawling something on the sheet, then passed it to me. Farkas had struggled to learn to read for a long time, having been born with a disorder that made words and letters “float” around the page, as he described it. With help from me, he was reading on his own by the end of my first year at Jorrvaskr. Years later, he was able to write, though he never did at length.

The sheet he passed to me, in nearly illegible handwriting, read “Talk?” I shook my head to him, but mouthed “Thank you” and received an unsatisfied nod. 

I glanced to the door as the stirring in my chest intensified. Cassius remained at the front of my mind, as he had been for a few hours now. I continued to stare at the door, ignoring the bump under the table as Farkas knocked against my foot with his own.

The rustling regained Vilkas’ attention. “Waiting for someone, pup?” he asked, genuine curiosity audible in his voice.

“It’s the strangest thing,” I began, “but I think my brother is nearby.”

Aela snorted. “Are you psychic now too, Lissa?” I shot her a look, which she greeted with a coy smile. She slid her mug toward me. “Read my tea leaves. Tell me my future.”

I smirked. “There are no leaves in heavy liquor, if I’m not mistaken.” Aela lifted her hand to display a rather obscene gesture, then pulled her mug back to her mouth for another swallow.

Almost exactly on cue, the door opened and the cold air of winter carried Cassius through the door. The Companions cheered as he entered, calling their greetings to him and smiling when he greeted them with a boastful wave. My brother never really committed to anything, so when he “joined” the Companions, he really only got past his initial invitation. Never officially inducted into our mortal foil, Cass was a partial-Companion, taking advantage of our courtyard from time to time and pestering his Stormcloak brothers, who trickled into our numbers after the Great War ended, whenever he had the chance. 

“What in the f-” Aela began, but her surprise was cut short when Cass approached our shabby table. He usually pulled up a chair and made himself at home, but today, he didn’t.

A smile ever present on his face, he placed his hand on my shoulder as he looked around the table. “Evening, Companions.” Aela grunted. Vilkas nodded. Farkas welcomed him with a warm smile and a deep ‘Hi!’. 

I stared up at him. “Hello, brother. Kind of you to intrude in our private affairs.”

“Oh please.” Cass snorted, rolling his eyes. “I hate to leave you without a Harbinger, folks, but Karl and I have dragons to slay.” At our courtesy laughter, he pursed his lips. “I was serious, actually. There’s a dragon circling over Hollyfrost Farm. I just received word.”

Vilkas straightened immediately. “That’s a joke, right?”

“Oh, aye.” Cassius grinned, mocking Vilkas’ accent. Vilkas blinked, his lips pressed into a firm line. Cass’ smile faded. “No, I’m very serious. We need to leave now.”

“No.” Vilkas said, his voice a bit louder than appropriate as he grew angry. This caught the attention of Leif and the Companions, who were watching.

I smiled widely, standing from my seat. “Let’s have this discussion outside.” I suggested, and Aela and Farkas stood to follow.

Vilkas stayed firmly in his seat. “There shouldn’t be a discussion. You’re not going.”

“What?” I asked, sort of laughing. “Of course I am, Vilkas.” Looking around the room, I lowered my voice. “We talked about this.”

Vilkas stood, then, and stalked toward the back door and out into the courtyard. The four of us followed quickly behind. Outside, Vilkas stood in the center of the covered area, his arms folded across his chest. He stared at me, waiting for my explanation.

“Vilkas, when we went to High Hrothgar, you told me that if I felt that I belonged with dragons, I should be with dragons.” I reminded him. “You said you would follow me wherever I wanted to go.”

“Aye, when you wanted to go back down the mountain.” he retorted, shaking his head. “Have you forgotten that you died the last time you fought a dragon?”

“I haven’t.” Farkas said quietly, standing off in the corner, just behind Aela.

“Neither have I.” I added. “But this is a part of my journey, Vilkas. This is my destiny.”

He pinched his the bridge of his nose between his fingertips, shutting his eyes for a moment. He released a long sigh. “Is this really a necessary part of the destiny?”

“Yeah.” Cass muttered. “Unfortunately. But the dying won’t happen again, Vil. That’s a promise.” 

Vilkas grumbled, releasing his nose and looking at me. There was pain behind his gaze, and that left pain in my heart. “Please, Kara.”

I winced. “Vilkas…”

“No, I mean please, Kara, please don’t die.” he said, reaching for me. 

I stumbled toward him, pressing my face into his chest and wrapping my arms tightly around him. “I won’t. I promise.”

“If you don’t come back to me, I’ll hunt your brother down and murder him.” Vilkas mumbled, smiling against my hair. “So if you value his life, you’ll come home unscathed.”

“Fine.” I laughed, and he released me. He ran his knuckles over my cheek, tracing the long scar that Krev the Skinner left behind so long ago.

“Go be with dragons.” he mumbled, smiling softly before he released me.

I reached up on my toes to leave a quick kiss against his cheek, then bounced back to my brother. He patted Vilkas on the back, then lead me quickly toward the gates of Whiterun.

“So, how are we doing this?” I asked. “And which of us absorbs the soul?”

Cass smirked. “Today, it’s Ulfric’s turn.”


	7. Into Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After weeks of dreaming her death, Karalissa can't find a reason to hang on.
> 
> POV: Karalissa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I was a good author, I would write "trigger warning" in all caps..
> 
> Sorry I never write anymore. I just haven't had anything to say.
> 
> Here's a really sad chapter.

I dismounted my horse as I reached the cliff’s edge, searching for a moment for a spot to hitch him. After a moment of thought, though, I stroked his mane. Maven and I had been through so much together through the years, and when I’d traveled Skyrim without my brother, he’d been my only company. When I joined the Companions, I rarely ever found a moment to visit him in the stables, and the right thing to do just seemed to be to let my brother take him. Cass had plenty of stable room at his home, and he’d always prided himself on being a horse whisperer of sorts. Maven was well taken care of in his retirement.

Today, however, I felt the strong urge to take him out for one last ride. We’d seen many things together, and it somehow felt right to take him with me on this last journey.

Over the past few months, as my family and I fought dragons, my life began to unravel. After Ulfric absorbed his first dragon soul, he became more powerful than we could have imagined. Much like the Tongues of ages before us, his voice became too powerful with the addition of a dragon’s power, and made speaking at all very difficult for him. On a good day, he was lucky to get one or two words out soft enough not to send the nearest people flying across the room. After an incident where he spoke in a voice barely more than a whisper and sent Galmar soaring across his palace, forcing him into a pillar and breaking two of his ribs, my father had given up speaking all together.

As Ulfric’s words tapered into nothingness, my brother’s multiplied from their already staggeringly large numbers. We were approaching our final weeks in Skyrim before traveling to Sovngarde to battle Alduin. Though Cassius was more than excited to duel his sworn enemy for his second time, he spent every waking moment he had training with me and Ulfric to prepare us for the fight. His destiny-our destiny-had become his livelihood, and I felt obligated to continue with him, though my heart screamed to go home.

Where I had once felt like I belonged with dragons, the more I dreamed of my death, the more I resented the winged beasts. Nearly every time I slept, I had the same dream of wandering Helgen, then finding Vilkas cradling my burnt corpse. Every night, he begged for me to live, and every night I woke in a cold sweat, heart and mind racing with the utter fear of dragons. In battle, Ulfric, Cassius, and I could not be bested. The three of our voices could take down dragons in mere seconds together. But every night when I settled into sleep, I trembled as I waited for the dragons of my dreams to take me again.

But I couldn’t quit. It would break Cassius’ heart if I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore. It would break Ulfric’s heart to know he’d lost his voice for nothing. It would break Vilkas’ heart to know he waited for me for nothing. I was miserable as the Dragonborn, and there was no way out.

I rarely saw my Companions anymore. I couldn’t find a way to balance my life as the Dragonborn and my life as the Harbinger. I knew they felt as though I’d abandoned them. Farkas had been taking a lot of initiative, leading our family of ruffians in training and assigning most of the jobs, and I knew that wasn’t fair to him. Aela had been missing in attendance as she spent her days consulting with Hircine. She planned to renounce her lycanthropy to spend her afterlife with Farkas in Sovngarde, and I knew it was hard for her to leave Skjor alone in the Hunting Grounds.

I watched on painfully as Vilkas supported my destiny. He never said anything about my days or weeks of absence, he encouraged Leif not to ask questions I wouldn’t want to answer, and he took on more than most of the Harbinger’s paperwork, barring Farkas’ inability to write well. He was struggling to raise our son alone, and though he never said more than an “I love you” and a strained smile, I knew he was beginning to resent me for choosing dragons over our family. 

I felt trapped. I couldn’t go back to the way things had once been, before that dragon called to me all those weeks ago. I couldn’t just go back to the Companions, or to Vilkas, without some kind of explanation, and I didn’t know how to tell him I’d dreamed of my death with every slumber for three weeks. I’d grown tired of worrying him, and I didn’t want to anymore.

I felt alone surrounded by my closest friends and family, and I had decided to take a ride to clear my head. The past week had held no dragon fights, and I had simply been taking time to enjoy what was left of normalcy. Though I was home in Whiterun, I didn’t spend my entire day with the Companions. I visited with old friends in the city, settled old debts. I had a drink with the members of the Circle, regaled stories of old times together. I spent time alone with Vilkas, wishing together that we could travel back in time and tell our old selves things we wish we had known. I took Leif out for a walk outside of Whiterun, showed him parts of Skyrim he’d never seen. I made sure my son knew I loved him dearly, and tucked him into bed every night before I retired with Vilkas.

This morning, though, I woke with the need to be by myself. I brushed Leif’s hair and kissed Vilkas’ cheek before they sat down to work on Leif’s school teachings. I ate an apple on my way to visit the Companions, to say hello to Aela and to give Farkas a hug, because he seemed like he needed one as much as I did. I traveled to my brother’s home to say hello to him and Lydia and Catriona, then borrowed my old steed from his stables. From then, Maven and I had been wandering around parts of Skyrim I never got to visit, on the outskirts of Whiterun hold.

As I stared into the eyes of the dark brown horse, I saw a sliver of happiness. He didn’t want to be trapped in the stables anymore. He wanted to roam free the way he did when I found him, so many years ago. For a moment, I pressed my forehead against his long face, smiling as I listened to the pace of his aging breaths. 

Then, I released his reigns. I unhooked the saddle from beneath his belly and the harness from his jaw. I stroked the side of his face one last time, then stepped away. He seemed confused for a moment, but he turned about and trotted away. My eyes teared up as I watched him go, the old boy prancing toward the rest of his life without me. 

For a moment, I felt utter peace. I felt like I’d released myself from the world’s grip in doing one good deed for an old horse. I smiled softly, allowing it to fade as the feeling of dread returned to me. Tears spilled over the edge of my eyes as I looked around, searching for something else to advert my attention to, but I saw my death in everything. I saw the end of my life in everything.

I turned to the edge of the cliff, looking down at the water below. The drop was maybe a hundred feet or so, the water below rushing fast over a bed of rocks. I’d been here before, many years ago, but I’d been with Vilkas. Now, I was alone, and I stood staggering there for a moment as I peered down at the great precipice below me. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and I wrapped my hand around the chain hanging from my neck, holding my wedding band. For a moment, I thought of Vilkas. I smiled.

 

And then, I jumped.

I did not see my life flash before my eyes as I fell.

Instead, I heard

the wind flying past me,

whistling in my ears. I 

felt the blistering cold

of the air swirling around

me. I opened my mouth

to scream

but instead I breathed a

laugh, giddy to fall into the

arms of the

unknown. For just a moment, 

I heard the haunting

tune of my mother’s music box

from when I was a child. And

somewhere beyond,

beyond this world,

beyond myself,

I heard someone

calling my name.

And then

I felt

peace.

 

And then, I hit the water with a deafening splash. The current whipped me around in the water, cracking my back against a rock on the bottom. I surfaced, gasping for air just before I was dragged back down. The force of the water was too much for me to swim against, and I was pulled toward the roar of the waterfall, fast approaching.

I forced myself not to fight, to let the water take me into the darkness of death. I allowed the water to whip me into another rock, hearing a gargled scream escape my lips from beneath the water’s surface. 

I felt my lungs fill with water as I flew down to the next level of liquid abyss, slamming against the bottom again. My head spun from the lack of oxygen, my heart raced from the adrenaline that told me to fight. For a fraction of a second, I saw Vilkas’ face, standing on the porch of our home and waiting for me to return. 

And suddenly, I didn’t want to die. I want to be held by Vilkas one last time, to hear his voice. I began to swim again, pain in every limb as I forced them to work once more. I kicked as hard I could, propelling myself back to the surface. 

The current was too fast, and my body too weak. I flew into another rock, disorienting me for a moment. When my eyesight focused again, I saw myself approaching the steepest waterfall, the one that ran into Honningbrew Meadery. I’d seen that waterfall a million times, and I knew what the drop looked like. I braced myself to fall, cursed myself for jumping.

Then, a set of strong arms ripped me from below the surface and into the warm air of Whiterun hold. I coughed and wheezed, struggling to eject the fluid from my lungs. I dropped to the ground on all fours, spitting water into the grass when my lungs threw it up.

I sputtered, pushing my hair away from my face. After a moment, I laughed to myself. I had been so horrifyingly close to death, and I never wanted to be that close again. But I remembered the dream, and knew that I was going to die one way or another. I slammed my fist into the soil below me, then slammed again. I was suddenly furious that I hadn’t died. Furious that it would be the dragons that took me.

I looked up to see Farkas, tears running down his face and smearing his warpaint. He was panting, breathing heavily from either panic or from his sprint to get to me. He stared at me with bewildered eyes, searching for an answer in my face.

Instead of answering, I crumpled, breaking into harsh sobs as I reached for him. He dropped to his knees, pulling me into his arms and holding me tightly. We both cried, sitting there in the grass. His large hand cradled my head to his neck, keeping me close to him.

And then, just like that, I didn’t want to die anymore. I wanted to go back to how things used to be, before the dragons. I wanted to live without fear, and that made me cry harder.

Farkas held me tighter, rocking me back and forth gently to calm me down. He never took his eyes off of me, as if I may sprint back for the water if he blinked. After a while, we both fell silent. He sniffled before he spoke.

“Lissa.” he whispered, squeezing me tightly. “Why would you do that?”

My throat swelled up at his words. I swallowed. “How did you find me?”

“I followed you.” he almost yelled. “I’ve been following you for days.”

“Days?” I asked, shocked.

Farkas nodded. “It looked like you were saying goodbye for days. And this morning, you hugged me goodbye, didn’t you?” When he paused, I nodded. He grimaced. “I was worried. And I was right to be.” He held me closer. “Why did you do that?”

I tried to swallow the sobs, but they came anyway. “Please, don’t tell Vilkas.”

Farkas shook his head. “I don’t know what to do, Lissa. I don’t know how to help you.” He squeezed me again, begging me to allow him inside my head.

I began to cry again, and he ran his large hand over my wet hair to calm me. He looked up at the sky, shaking his head to dismiss his own tears. “Do you remember…” he began. “Do you remember when we went to Dustman’s Cairn?”

I felt my head jerk back in confusion, then I nodded. “Y-Yes. Of c-course I do.” I wheezed out.

Farkas nodded. “I remember everything. Always.” He looked back down at me, tears still evident in his eyes. “We took a carriage most of the way, and you told me about your friend from Riften. The one you used to read with. And I told you I couldn’t read.”

I steadied my breath. “You said they were like shapes and squiggles, and they moved around the page.”

“Yes.” he said simply, smiling to himself. “You read to me. And you’ve read to me almost everyday since. You’re the only person who ever cared about me like that.”

“A lot of people care about you, Farkas.”

“ _ You’re _ the only person who ever cared about me like  _ that _ .” Farkas repeated, his brow furrowing. “You read to me. You included me. You made sure I felt included.” He shook his head. “My own brother hadn’t done that for me.”

I touched his face. “Vilkas loves you, Farkas.”

He shook his head again. “Not the way you love me. Vilkas loves me because we’ve spent our whole lives together. Because we’ve seen and done everything at the same time. You love me because you got to know me, and decided to love me.”

“I do love you, Farkas.” I said. “Of course I love you. You’re my very best friend.”

I saw his lip quiver, and he pursed them to make it stop. “Then why do you want to leave me here by myself?”

I shook my head, swallowing hard. “I’m going to die anyway.”

“So am I.” Farkas replied. “So is Vilkas. We don’t throw ourselves off of gods damned cliffs.”

“Please don’t tell him, Farkas.” I begged. “Please don’t tell Vilkas.”

“I have to, Lissa.” he said. “I have to tell him.”

“Please, Farkas. I can’t let him know I’m going to die.”

“You were going to die today!” he yelled. “You were going to die in the water! You wanted to die!”

“I don’t want to die!” I yelled back, shoving away from him. “I don’t want to die at all! But I’d rather drown than burn.”

Farkas was quiet after that, sitting in silence and waiting for me to explain myself. I drew a few breaths, pushing my hair away from my face. I stared at the water rushing before us, then shut my eyes. I scooted back to sit with him again, and he placed his hand on my back.

“I’m going to die in Sovngarde. Battling Alduin.” I said softly.

His brow furrowed. “You don’t know that-”

“I do know.” I interrupted, rather aggressively. “I know because I’ve dreamed it every night for weeks.” 

Farkas blinked in disbelief. “You never dream.”

“Yeah, I know.” I said. “Unless I have a premonition.”

Farkas was silent, and then he released a long sigh. “These are the times I wish I had Kodlak to confide in. He always knew what to say. He always could explain.”

“I don’t know if even Kodlak would have an answer for this, Farkas.” I admitted. 

He nodded. “But the answer isn’t throwing yourself into the water, Lissa.”

I clenched my jaw, nodding slowly. “I know, Farkas. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to die, Lissa.” he whispered. “I need you.”

“I need you too.” I said, looking up at him. “I promise I won’t ever do that again.”

He nodded, spending a moment in thought. “You’re not going to like what I say next.”

“Oh gods.” I said, my voice scratchy and hitching slightly. “What?”

Farkas placed his hand over mine. “When I cannot go to Kodlak, I go to Vilkas. He’s just as wise. Just angrier.”

I winced. “No. I can’t tell him this.”

Farkas offered me a sympathetic look. “I love you, Lissa, and I would do anything for you. But I can’t keep this from him. Not if you’re trying to hurt yourself.”

“I won’t do it again.” I said softly.

“Doesn’t change what just happened.” He squeezed my hand. “He needs to know. It will be better if you tell him.”

And with that, I sighed. “Okay.”


End file.
